


No spell quite like your smile

by charimiel



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: (like it's mentioned maybe twice), BAMF Stiles, Kidnapped Derek, Kidnapped Stiles, M/M, Magic!Stiles, Magical Stiles Stilinski, Minor Allison Argent/Scott McCall, Minor Lydia Martin/Jackson Whittemore, and maybe the hellmouth, beacon hills is a nightmare, everyone communicates through eye rolls and middle fingers and it is glorious, magic shop au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-19
Updated: 2014-06-22
Packaged: 2018-02-05 09:09:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 28,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1812991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/charimiel/pseuds/charimiel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I’m Stiles by the way. I’d shake your hand, but the stuff on my hands isn’t actually ink and I don’t want to subject anyone else to that.”<br/>....<br/>Derek’s really just exuding an aura of ‘what the fuck is wrong with this guy’. Stiles gets that a lot actually.</p><p>Or</p><p>The one where Stiles owns a magic shop and Derek probably regrets coming back to Beacon Hills right about now.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part I

**Author's Note:**

> Set in some hybrid universe where season 1 somehow happened without Derek coming back, and Derek comes back to Beacon Hills years later when everything's still a nightmare, because it's Beacon Hills.

He’s working at the front desk, a biro in his mouth even as he writes with the fountain pen. The instructions Lydia had given him were extremely specific, and she’ll have his head if he messes this up. He hears the jingle of the bell to his shop, but doesn’t look up, focusing on the swirl of the s on the Latin he’s carefully transcribing onto parchment.

There’s a clearing of a throat from right in front of him, and he frowns.

“Gimme me a sec, bit busy here.”

He finishes the line, and grins, setting the pen down before looking up. And immediately double taking, because damn. In front of him is possibly the hottest person Stiles has ever seen in his whole life, and Stiles went to high school with Jackson and Lydia. He’s suddenly very aware of the fact he’s chewing on an old biro, with ink splattered up his arm, and his hair’s no doubt all over the place.

“Uh- hi? How can I help?” he asks, pulling the pen out of his mouth and grimacing at the cracked end. He needs to stop chewing on pens, it drives Lydia insane. “Sorry, I don’t get many newcomers in here; most people are used to me.”

The guy looks at him a little strangely, some cross between a glare and a frown, and that expression would be hilarious on Stiles, but this guy is pulling it off really distractingly well. Stiles is aware he has problems, and a large number of those problems come from being exclusively attracted to people who glare at him. He blames Lydia; it’s all her fault really.

“Protection charms.” The guy eventually huffs, in a put upon tone, and Stiles blinks, then carefully screws the lid back on the bottle of ink (he’s pretending its ink. He does not want to think of the ingredients of the black liquid, it was bad enough brewing the thing), and places it well away from where his flailing arms might reach. Stiles has learned over the years that he’ll always be a disaster of moving limbs. He’d hoped he’d grow out of it, but at 25 he still manages to knock things over with an alarming regularity, and he really doesn’t want to brew that potion again. There was blood last time. Quite literally, apparently an important ingredient in a lot of potions is a spark’s blood. Which sucks, because Stiles really does not enjoy the whole bloodletting part. And- he realises he’s kinda gone off on a tangent in his head, and the guy on the other side of the counter appears to be rapidly losing patience, full on glaring now. Stiles snaps out of it.

“Protection charms? What kind?”

The guy frowns, looking a little confused. “There are different kinds?”

“Well, yeah, there’s specific protection charms or general goodwill ones first of all, and that’s not even going into depth as to the type of magic you want here. I’m Stiles by the way. I’d shake your hand, but the stuff on my hands isn’t actually ink and I don’t want to subject anyone else to that.”

The guy looks a little confused, but nods and mutters “Derek.”

“Okay, so, Derek, what do you want this protection spell for? Actually first of all, who do you want it for?”

Derek looks kinda uncomfortable, but if he wants charms he’s gonna have to give Stiles a bit more than just protection.

“It’s for me. I just… my family used to have some.”

Stiles recognises that particular tone on ‘my family’, the slightly strangled voice, the slight rushing over the words. It’s a tone he’s knows from every time dad mentions his mom. He knows Derek can’t exactly ask them what the charms were for. It’s unfortunate, Stiles really needs more to work with here.

“Well, what did they look like?”

“There was one of them which was a dream catcher I think?” Derek says, and that’s actually surprisingly helpful, because dream catcher means a general goodwill protection type deal, and that’s so much easier than specific protection spells. Thank god, Stiles is already exhausted, this means he doesn’t have to use too much more of his energy on actual strenuous magic today.

“Awesome, I can do that. General protection charm basically.” He slides off the stool, not quite gracefully; he’ll never really be all that graceful. At least he doesn’t fall flat on his face, because he’s been known to do that before. “I’ll just grab some stuff.” He steps out from behind the counter, wiping his hands on his trousers unconsciously, before realising what he’s doing and sighing. There’s another pair ruined.

He wanders the shop for a while, it’s an eclectic mess, but it appeals to him. He prefers it like this, because walking around; he can just let instinct take him where it needs him to go. There’s no bias in what he chooses, just the good ol’ magic. He probably zones out for a bit, because he’s suddenly standing in front of the counter carrying several boxes of materials, and Derek’s doing this thing with his eyebrows at him that’s probably insulting, and definitely a query about his sanity.

“Stop with the judgy eyebrows, I know what I’m doing even if I look insane” he absently says, throwing the boxes onto the counter and making his way back around to the other side, pulling himself up onto the stool again and flipping open some of the lids.

“What are you doing?” Derek asks gruffly, frowning at the boxes.

“Making a protection charm, what else” he mutters, grabbing an oak frame. “I’d use rowan for this usually, but apparently my magic is speaking to me in a particularly anti-rowan way today, who knows why, you haven’t pissed off any Nordic gods recently have you? Don’t answer that, of course you haven’t. What’s your surname anyway?” Derek looks kinda surprised.

“I figured you’d just sell me some generic thing. And it’s Hale. Derek Hale.”

Stiles freezes. “I make everything personalised here, this isn’t some souvenir shop” he says, trying to force his heart to stop going insane, but- nope, apparently it’s too late for that, because Derek has definitely noticed something’s up. Crap. This is apparently what comes of not putting up creature identification wards.

“What is it?” Derek asks, his eyes moving around the room as if to try and spot the threat, and… okay, if Derek isn’t immediately aware that Stiles thinks he’s the threat then Stiles is probably safe, but it’s best to check. He pulls a jar of yellow powder out from under the desk where he keeps it, on a hidden shelf with his mountain ash, mistletoe and wolfsbane in sealed jars. He learned the hard way in high school to always be prepared for werewolves. Fucking Peter Hale.

He grabs Derek’s hand quickly, before the man- well, technically wolf if he’s right- can pull away, and sprinkles a small amount of the yellow stuff on his palm. There’s a tense moment- or at least, Stiles is tense. Derek’s really just exuding an aura of ‘what the fuck is wrong with this guy’. Stiles gets that a lot actually.

Nothing happens. Thank god, Stiles is so done with murderous psychotic werewolves and their incessant need to cause bodily harm and endless property damage.

“Stiles. What are you doing.” Derek asks- well, more demands. And- yeah Stiles is still holding onto Derek’s wrist. He should probably let go about now. And maybe offer some kind of explanation, before he ends up getting gutted anyway. Blood is really not something you need loose in a shop full of magical artefacts. He unfortunately knows this from experience, the time he summoned a ghoul from a papercut still features heavily in his nightmares. Seriously, ghouls.

“Oh, yeah. Intention powder. Cause, y’know, gotta be sure you aren’t gonna take after your psychotic uncle and try to gut me. That wasn’t fun last time. You are a werewolf though right? That’s a Hale thing, though I never really considered the genetics of all that. Can werewolves have human children? Also, your questions sound a lot like statements, you should work on that.”

Derek blinks, as though processing all of that. Okay, Stiles maybe has a habit of rambling. It comes with the territory, he’s an ADHD witch with an overactive imagination and an incessant need to know everything, it would be weird if he didn’t ask a lot of questions.

“Why are you sprinkling ‘intention powder’ on me.”

“Because you said you were a Hale, and the last Hale I met tried to kill me, and actually did kill a bunch of people, so I figured it’s be safest to check. Apparently you have good intentions here though, or else there’d have been a lot more screaming and boiling flesh when I did that, so don’t worry, I won’t break out the wolfsbane. Promise.”

“You’re insane.”

“So I’ve been told. So, answer the question. Werewolf, yes or no?”

“How do you even know about werewolves?” Derek asks, defensive, and that’s pretty much confirmation. Stiles laughs.

“Dude, I own a magic shop, and my best friends are a werewolf, a banshee, and a hunter. It’d be weird if I didn’t know about werewolves.” There’s a moment of silence, before Derek lets his eyes glow red, clearly as an answer. Honestly, there must be some kind of species clause for overdramatics, it would’ve been a lot simpler to just tell him- but no, Derek had to flash his eyes at him like this is some crappy horror movie.

“Okay, I’m gonna get on with your protection charm then.” He waves his arms at Derek. “Feel free to wander, or leave, or whatever.” When Derek stays standing awkwardly in front of him, he sighs. “Or just loom creepily there. That’s fine, whatever. At least grab a chair though, I honestly have no idea how long this is gonna take.”

Derek looks around for a chair, then spots one over the other side of the store and strides over to it, dragging it back over to the counter and sitting down opposite Stiles, staring at the boxes and jars Stiles had fetched.

“Well, the oak frame makes a lot more sense now, considering rowan isn’t a good choice for a werewolf. And suddenly the night-blooming cereus powder makes so much more sense. Cause, y’know, moonflowers right” Stiles muses, more to himself than to Derek, but the wolf appears to be listening, which is quite nice actually.

He closes his eyes, and lets his magic guide his hand to what he needs. He never follows instructions when creating things like this; instead he uses his instinct to guide him to the right choices. It apparently works well for him, because his magic is in tune with the universe or some other new-agey thing. Vibes and auras and stuff, or whatever.

He opens his eyes to see he’s got his fingers pinched in the moonflower, and lifts his hand to see a string forming from the dust. This magic business will never not be weird to him, it still surprises him that he can do stuff like this by just believing. He pulls out a long length, until he has enough for what he needs to do, and attaches the end of the cord to the oak frame. Humming slightly to himself, he starts weaving, muttering the odd Latin word and Gaelic chant under his breath, when they seem appropriate. It doesn’t take long before he’s tightening the thread and tying it off. He hums slightly as his hands hover over the boxes, before he reaches in to pull out a box of gemstones.

When he finishes, he says a quick spell over the dream catcher, a simple goodwill charm, god knows Derek probably needs it. He slides it across the counter to Derek, who’s been staring into space in the general direction of Stiles’s hands for the last 5 minutes or so. Derek looks up at him, blinking, before he picks up the dream catcher with a surprising amount of care.

“What do I owe you?” he asks, looking uncomfortable, and- yeah, Stiles can tell he’s not really the kind of person who enjoys being around people. And Stiles is definitely a person. 

“12 dollars” he says, after a moment’s pause where he settles on a price. They’re very flexible prices, depending on who’s buying (and how much Stiles likes them, of course. He’d charged a contingent of dark fae who wanted a basic gemstone almost twice it’s worth last week. The fae are seriously creepy. Also, he’s never forgiven them for that time with Scott’s hair). Derek looks a little surprised, and Stiles laughs. “What, did you think I was gonna ask for some weird witchy ingredient?” he deliberately makes his voice sound mysterious and creepy, and continues “It’s yours, in exchange for the claw from your right index finger”. Derek scowls and pulls out his wallet. It’s a great tragedy that some people in this world just don’t understand humour.

It’s only later, after Derek has paid (and left the change from a 20, calling it a tip, and who even tips in places other than coffee shops and restaurants?) that he realises he probably should’ve found out a bit more. Like, why the hell is Derek hale, alpha werewolf, back in beacon hills, and for how long? That’s almost definitely gonna come back to bite him in the ass later.

……………………..

A repetitive pounding on the door of the shop snaps Stiles out of his potion brewing trance he’d clearly managed to slip into. He’s just brewing up some of his regulars, sleeping potions and medicines for some of his repeat customers, and he knows the spell-work and instructions completely off by heart. He’d closed up the shop hours ago, in preparation for an evening ritual that had left him buzzing with too much energy to even think about sleeping. The runes drawn up his arms are still glowing faintly, magic sparking through his very bones.

He heads to the front of the shop, absently running a hand through his already mussed hair, with who knows how many different substances smeared through it. When he fiddles with the lock and pulls the door inwards, a very large body follows, nearly falling flat on the ground before Stiles catches an arm.

“Whoa there, what the hell?” he says, pulling the guy upright. He immediately recognises Derek- if the sinfully attractive body and face wasn’t enough, then the incredibly magnificent eyes right in front of him definitely belong to the alpha. He appears to be having trouble controlling the eyes in question though, flashing red and fading away again randomly as Stiles watches.

“Oh shit, I forgot to tell Allison” is the first thing that comes out of his mouth, and by the glare Derek levels at him that’s not very helpful. That’s a pretty impressive glare for a rapidly dying guy who can’t even stand up on his own. He hauls Derek’s arm around his shoulders and helps the guy to the back of the shop, wincing at the blood he sees seeping from Derek’s side. That’s a level of unpleasant he recognises well, from the one time Scott was shot by a wolfsbane bullet by Allison’s psychotic aunt.

He sets him down on the couch he has in the back room, for days when he’s uses up too much energy in spellwork and has to collapse. After falling asleep on the floor a few times back in the days he was just getting started, he invested in something comfy.

He’s barely set him down before there’s another pounding on the door, and he looks at Derek in a way he hopes is reassuring and probably comes out manic. He hasn’t slept in 2 days, he’s a mess, he’s aware.

He heads to the front, and isn’t even surprised to open the door to Allison.

“Stiles, you need to get your mountain ash, there’s another werewolf in town. I think I hit it, but-“

Stiles cuts her off. “Okay, I am so sorry, I give you and Lydia free reign to shout at me later, but I kinda already knew? I was gonna tell you, but then I was working and then I completely forgot and he’s not a threat, I already tried the intention powder on him and everything, just-“

“Stiles!” ugh, why it every time they converse during anything resembling a crisis they always end up cutting each other off? They probably need to work on their communication skills. “Who is it?”

“Oh, it’s Derek Hale. But he’s completely harmless, promise” Stiles adds, when Allison somewhat negatively reacts to the surname. “I just need some of the wolfsbane from your bullets, then you can interrogate him yourself.”

“But how are you gonna find- he’s in the back, isn’t he.”

“You know me so well Ally, it’s touching”

“Stiles! You have a wolfsbaned alpha werewolf in your back room, stop joking!”

“He’s harmless, chill. Look, you can come with, and point a gun threateningly at him if you don’t believe me, but I’d really rather people stopped dying and he’s going to pretty damn soon if I don’t help him. You’re a much better shot than your aunt, which is normally great in actual crises, but in this situation it’s pretty inconvenient.”

Allison stares at him for a minute, then pulls out a dagger from who knows where under her clothes.

“These are better close range than guns.” She says, and then she pulls a box of bullets out of her pocket and hands them over. “Lead the way Merlin”

“I wish you wouldn’t call me that” Stiles grumbles, as he heads to the back of the shop, Allison on his heels. Derek is, unsurprisingly, still on the couch. He’s also passed out. Which is also unsurprising, and pretty helpful actually, it’s probably best if Derek isn’t conscious for at least a bit of this, wolfsbane healing hurts like a bitch according to Scott.

He takes a bullet out of the case, and takes it apart the way he’s seen Allison do numerous times, filling her bullets with various powders for all the different creatures she’s had to shoot over the years. Maybe Beacon Hills is actually the hellmouth, that would make a surprising amount of sense.

He pours the powder into his hand, then sets it on fire with some of the residual magic that’s still sparking in him. Allison doesn’t even jump; this is an old party trick for Stiles. His magic physically can’t hurt him without the input of some serious dark magic, so the fire just feels a little like something tickling his palm. He pulls up Derek’s shirt with his other hand, trying not to stare at the rather incredible chest he reveals, then presses the wolfsbane into the wound, following it with a little magic to prevent the burn from hurting Derek too much. The werewolf twitches, and his eyes fly open looking pained, but he doesn’t start writhing or screaming. Either Stiles magic helped with the pain, or Scott’s a drama queen. It could be either really.

When all the wolfsbane in the wound is counteracted, Stiles pulls his hand back and makes a face at the black goop on his hand.

“Y’know, I never did get why poisoned werewolf blood is black.”

Derek looks mildly irritated, but not pained, so Stiles figures he’s fine. Allison puts the knife away again, apparently reassured there’s no threat to them, and gives Derek a long assessing look before turning around and walking out of the room. He hears the front door of the shop open and shut a minute later as she leaves.

“She likes to make a dramatic exit that one. She’s acting all dark and mysterious, which would normally work on intimidating defenceless supernatural creatures, but I know for a fact she’s just late for date night with Scott. I’m sure I’ll hear all about it tomorrow, Scott overshares.” He says absently, wiping his hand on his long ruined jeans. Derek stares at him like he’s not sure what to even say to that, and Stiles almost bursts out laughing. There’s probably a creepy smile on his face though, and Derek scowls and sits up, pushing himself off the couch and upright.

“Thank you.” He says, stoic and deliberately polite, but Stiles feels the raw gratitude behind it anyway, and waves his hand.

“Anytime dude.”

“Don’t call me dude.” Derek responds, almost automatically, before frowning. “Why can I smell blood?”

“Oh, hey, question marks! I thought you didn’t know what they were?” Stiles teases, because he’s never been the kind of person to take a situation seriously, and at this point he’s made a magical protective charm for Derek and saved his life, they’re clearly on the road to a long and flourishing friendship. “It’s from the runes, just a bit mixed in with the powder to make the spell stronger.” He adds, when Derek doesn’t stop with the (worried? Stiles needs to start learning Derek’s eyebrow language) eyebrows.

There’s a few moments of uncomfortable silence, before Stiles lets out a sigh, and starts packing up his potion ingredients carefully. He’s not gonna get anything else done tonight, and the potion he’s been working on is completely ruined from having been left to sit for far too long.

“I’m glad you had enough sense to come here at least, but it’s kinda late and the magic is pretty much wearing off, and I’m gonna crash, so feel free to let yourself out.”

When he turns around again, the potion ingredients back in boxes and drawers, Derek is gone. “Impressive.” He says out loud to himself, he hadn’t even heard the door, but Derek’s definitely gone.

Before he crashes in his bed, in his room above the shop, he adds a reminder to his calendar for the next day to add identification wards to the shop. It’ll make life a lot easier for him and everyone else.

……………

He gets woken by a text from Lydia the next morning, telling him to ‘get over here right now we’re having an important meeting, Scott has information, and he won’t start without you’. He groans, but forces himself out of bed, because he actually likes his reproductive organs in one piece and if he doesn’t listen to Lydia they won’t be for much longer.

He puts up the closed sign when he leaves the shop, locking the door, and heading to his jeep. Somehow, despite multiple assaults from supernatural creatures, and despite the fact she’s far older than Stiles, she’s still running, and Stiles wouldn’t ever trade her for a more reliable car. They’ve survived numerous supernatural shit storms together, she’s like family. In a weird, car-like way. Whatever, it’s too early in the morning to be thinking about his relationship with an inanimate object.

When he gets to Scott and Allison’s apartment, he parks outside and locks the jeep behind him. He nearly falls on his face climbing out of the driver’s side door, because he’s even less coordinated in the mornings. When he looks up, he sees Lydia in the window, a single eyebrow raised in judgement.

When he lets himself in with the spare key, he finds Allison, Lydia and Scott all sitting in comfy chairs around the room. Lydia rolls her eyes at his exaggerated yawn, but points to a cup of coffee on the table.

“I got Scott to make you some; god knows you’ll be useless without it.”

“Ah, Lydia, light of my life, you are too good for me.” He says, bowing exaggeratedly and making her roll her eyes at him.

“Shut up and drink the coffee Stilinski.”

He grins, and sits down in the last remaining chair, grabbing the coffee mug and taking a huge gulp.

“Scott, have I ever told you how much I love you? Because, seriously, I do, this coffee is perfect.”

“Tell me later dude, we have a problem.” Scott says, looking worried, and Stiles is immediately paying attention.  Last time they’d ‘had a problem’ Stiles had broken an arm, Scott had nearly broken his neck, and Allison had had to stay overnight in the hospital for a severe concussion. That one had actually been Stiles’s problem originally, that fucking ghoul. Lydia had only escaped unscathed cause she’d been on vacation.

“There’s another werewolf in town, I smelled them the other day, I think it’s an alpha.”

And immediately, Stiles is relaxing again, rolling his eyes.

“Okay, Ally, this one’s totally on you, c’mon. Do we need to go to a communication workshop or something? Do you two not talk to each other? Are you having relationship issues?”

Allison glares at him, and Lydia narrows her eyes, looking between the two of them, and Scott just looks confused.

“Stiles, this is serious, what if he hurts someone!” Scott says, unfortunately missing some of the key information. Bless him, he’s trying at least.

“It’s fine, he’s not gonna hurt anyone. He came into the shop like… 4 days ago or something? Then Allison accidentally shot him last night and I totally healed him. He’s fine; I tried the intention powder and everything. I assumed Allison would’ve told you?”

“I didn’t want to exactly bring up the fact I’d just shot a werewolf on mine and Scott’s date Stiles! It’s not like you can talk, you didn’t tell any of us for like two days.”

“Well, let’s just chalk this one up to a mutual failure of communication then. We’ll all try harder next time” he hurriedly says, because Lydia looks murderous at being left out of the loop, and Scott’s still looking worried.

“Stiles. Who is it.” Lydia demands to know, and wow, déjà vu. He apparently now knows two people who refuse to use question marks consistently.

“Derek Hale” he says quickly, preparing for the inevitable fallout, but it doesn’t come. Lydia looks at him assessingly for a minute, then nods and stands up.

“Well, as fun as this little meeting has been, I’ll be late for my lecture if I don’t leave know. Hale is lucky I trust your judgement Stiles.” She’s gone almost instantly, the sound of her expensive car starting up outside audible until she’s driven away. Stiles stands up, finishing his coffee, and grins.

“Well, this has been fun and all, but I’m late opening the shop, and knowing my luck there’s probably a very offended supernatural creature on my doorstep, so I’d better head back. See ya round Scotty, Allison.”

With that, he leaves, shutting the door behind him and humming to himself as he drives back to the shop.  

………

“I know you said he’s fine, but I just wanna know more y’know? Like- why’d he even come back? Is he planning on biting anyone?” Scott’s voice is tinny and worried over the phone, and Stiles is almost proud of the way Scott is worried for the innocent citizens of beacon hills. Not that there even are that many innocent citizens left. Anyone sane and innocent probably moved away years ago, what with the supernaturally high crime rate, and regular ‘animal attacks’.

“I totally agree dude, but could you have not called when I was in the middle of rune work? You know I hate having to find my place again”

“How was I supposed to know what you were doing Stiles?” Scott says, in an exasperated but obviously fond tone

“You’re just meant to know this shit dude, it’s our bro connection! Anyway, you definitely need to talk to Derek, yeah.”

“Awesome, so could you tell him? Arrange a meeting or something?”

Stiles takes the phone away from his ear and frowns at it for a moment.

“Erm, Scott, you are aware who you’re calling? I don’t know Derek. I’ve met him, like, twice.”

“Yeah, but he’s bound to stop by again man. He tipped like 10 dollars on something people don’t even usually tip on, he obviously likes you”

“It was eight dollars, and I regret telling you anything. He’s just a decent person, doesn’t mean he’s gonna come back here. Stop blowing shit out of proportion dude.”

The wards he’d finally gotten around to putting up alert him of someone entering the shop, and he looks up as Scott carries on talking to him. “C’mon dude, can you just ask him if he stops in.”

“Have you ever considered the possibility you might be prophetic Scott? Any seer blood in your family tree?”

“He just walked in, didn’t he?”

“Ah, there’s the bro connection. I’m gonna hang up now, call you back, Derek’s glaring.”

He disconnects the call before Scott can even say goodbye, or offer a protest.

“Heey, Derek, how’s it going” he says, completely casually.

“Were you talking about me?” Derek asks, frowning, and Stiles debates avoiding for a little time longer, but decides to (metaphorically at least) bite the bullet.

“Yup.” He says, popping the p just to be obnoxious, then grins. “Scott wants to meet you, to question you on your intentions with the poor innocent citizens of beacon hills. I don’t think the old man who lives across the road from me has killed anyone yet, we’ve got to check his life’s not in danger.”

Derek frowns, confused, and then clearly decides to just ignore Stiles’s ramblings. Which- hey, rude much? But kinda understandable, looking back, that didn’t make much sense out of context. Or in context. Whatever, who needs sense anyway.

“That’s why I’m here. I didn’t know how to get hold of him, but it’s considered polite to hold a meeting with any local wolves when moving into new territory.”

“So there actually are wolfy rules and customs! Scott just looked at me like I was insane when I asked, which is, y’know, probably more to do with the fact that he wasn’t actually brought up with wolfy customs, but you clearly were, I have so many questions god, do you realise how hard it was figuring all this shit out on my own?”

And Derek’s looking steamrollered. Not that it makes him look any less attractive, dammit. Stiles wishes he looked that attractive when he’s confused, his confused face just bears an uncomfortable resemblance to the goldfish Stiles had tried to keep in fourth grade. It had died in under a week. Scott still hasn’t forgiven him; the fish had been a birthday present. Oh yeah- mental tangents are a thing he should avoid. Derek’s definitely losing patience.

“Come to pack meeting tomorrow- it’s movie night, but I’m sure we can put the popcorn on hold until we get the werewolf politics out the way.”

“Where?”

“Just stop in here like at sixish, I’ll give you a ride to Scott’s place, if you want.”

“That sounds good. Thank you.”

“You’re weirdly formal dude. You need to loosen up a bit, stop overthinking your words. Or actually, no, you stick with what you’re doing, it’s probably better than my lack of filter, keep up the hard work. Oh- I have something for you.”

He ducks underneath the counter, rummaging through a bag before he pulls out a small pendant.

“There, if you’re planning on staying around here you’ll need one. It’s spelled. All the Argents bullets get spelled by me too, so this will make them bounce off you. Or y’know, the first one, because it takes its energy straight from me and I can’t really provide enough energy to stop more than one speeding bullet without collapsing and nearly dying. Only works on Allison and her dad’s bullets though, so don’t go running into hunter camps.”

“Stiles?”

“Uh-huh?”

“Why are you giving me this?”

“So you don’t get accidentally shot again by someone who doesn’t actually want you dead?”

“It’s- how did you know?”

Stiles is a little lost at that, then looks at the pendant and gets it.

“Oh, I personalise them, they work better that way, and other people don’t question them so much. I looked up your old pack symbol in Allison’s bestiary.”

The little black triskele pendant is just lying on the table, looking innocent, but Derek’s staring at it like it might try to eat him, so Stiles reaches over and prods him in the shoulder. And immediately regrets it, Derek’s eyes are suddenly meeting his and they’re a little blinding this close, whoa.

“Uh, yeah, so, that’s for you. Free of charge, the least I can do seeing as you already got shot by Allison. She’s sorry about that by the way.”

“Stiles. Thank you.” Derek says, stopping Stiles’s nervous babbling, and he picks up the pendant before walking out of the room with a parting “I’ll be here tomorrow.”

When Stiles is sure Derek’s sufficiently far away to not hear him, he slams his head down on the counter, hard. Way to look like an overeager dumbass.

………………..

Derek shows up the next day wearing the pendant, and Stiles grins when he sees it.

“I’ll be ready in a sec, just gotta put this stuff away” he says, gesturing to the pile of magical paraphernalia on the counter which had accumulated throughout the day’s spellwork and sales.

He shovels it all into a box, puts the box with the many others like it filed with items in a completely random way, and resolves to sort through the boxes at some point. Probably soon, the disorder is starting to get beyond comfortable clutter and into disaster zone.

“Right, you ready to meet the pack? Gotta warn you, we’re utterly terrifying as a group”

Derek raises an eyebrow. “I’m not sure terrifying is a word that could ever apply to you.”

“Shhh I’m incredibly intimidating.” The thing is, Stiles knows most of the time he comes off as some strange cross between a hyperactive kid and an overeager puppy, but he can be terrifying when the situation comes for it. He’s a fucking warlock/mage/magic user/whatever they’re calling it these days. But he lets the mockery slide, because Stiles doesn’t really want to be intimidating, and also, he kinda looks forward to the look on Derek’s face the first time he has to defend them from some stupid supernatural situation.

“Right, you coming?” he says, throwing his keys in the air and catching them, before heading out the door and waiting for Derek to follow him out before locking up the shop, quickly muttering some precautionary extra warding spells just in case.

“Derek, meet Bessie, my beloved, my one and only, my true love.” He says, waving his arms in the vague general direction of his jeep, and Derek’s expression is hilarious, a flash of confusion and ‘what the fuck’ crossing his face before he realises Stiles is kidding.

“You’re an idiot.”

“Aww thanks, you’re so sweet. Isn’t he sweet Bessie?”

“Stop taking to your car and get in it already.”

Stiles rolls his eyes, but gets in the jeep, because Scott’s expecting them, and Stiles really wants popcorn. Allison had promised she’d get him the caramel kind, which is totally the best kind, no matter what Scott says, how could salty popcorn even compare?

The drive over to Scott’s is silent- because yes, Stiles can totally be quiet when he wants to be, thank you very much. It’s comfortable silence though, and when they get to Scott’s Stiles turns to Derek before getting out of the car.

“I would like to apologise in advance. We can be a bit much when you put the four of us in a room together.”

“I’m sure I’ll be fine Stiles.”

“Well, don’t say I didn’t warn you” Stiles says, opening the door, and practically falling out of the jeep in his traditional exit manoeuvre.

When they get to the front door, Stiles doesn’t even bother ringing the doorbell, just unlocks the door with his own key, and gestures Derek in before him with a muttered ‘werewolves first’ that clearly isn’t missed by Derek is the scowl is anything to go by.

When Derek steps into the living room, he’s immediately faced by three matching assessing glares and stops in the doorway. Stiles snorts, and pushes him out the way into the room to head inside, flopping down on a chair. “How long have you guys been sat there like that?”

“Shut up Stiles.” Lydia, Derek and Allison all say in unison, and at Stiles’s protesting looks Scott just shrugs.

“Lydia’s idea.” He says, relaxing back in the chair, and gesturing Derek to come in the room and stop hovering awkwardly. “Just sit down, there’s plenty of chairs. I’m Scott, and you already know Allison and Stiles, and that’s Lydia.” He says, gesturing at the red head who’s still glaring menacingly at Derek. Stiles grabs a piece of paper from the notepad on the table, screws it into a ball, and throws it at her. She catches it without even looking away from Derek, and flips him off.

“We’re sorry about all of this, but we just need to make sure that you’re not going to pose any problems, beacon hills is already a- uh- unusual area.” Allison adds, her glare a little less murderous.

“You mean it’s fucking insane.” Stiles comments, then shuts up when Lydia’s glare is redirected at him. He mimes zipping his mouth shut, and sits back to watch the show.

It’s not all that entertaining in the end, Scott asks pointed questions and Derek answers them all calmly and coolly. Yes, he’s moving back on a permanent basis. No he’s not looking to rebuild a pack. No, he’s not planning on biting anyone, especially not against their will.

He obviously passes some kind of test, because Scott grins at him in his puppyish way and says “it’s good to have you here then; extra allies are always awesome in this town!”

Lydia’ death glare has reduced severely, probably from somewhere around a nine to maybe a three, and Allison passes Derek a bag of popcorn. Stiles makes grabby hands at Allison, and she throws him his own bag with a sigh.

“I’m...” Derek says, looking down at the popcorn bemused “why do I have this?”

“Because you’re totally saddled with us now.” Stiles says, matter-of-factly. “Scott’s officially adopted you, the papers have come though, and you’re one of us now. You’re staying for popcorn and movies. Also, I’m your ride, unless you wanted to run home?”

Stiles moves the conversation on before Derek can even protest, leaving him looking confused but maybe slightly pleased, if uncomfortable. “So, what movie are we watching?”

Lydia opens her mouth, but before she can even start speaking Allison cuts her off with a firm “no.” Allison’s normally the only one Lydia would allow to interrupt her without immediate bloodshed, but the banshee looks like she’s considering it.

“You don’t know what I was going to say.”

“You were going to suggest the notebook, and as much as I love that film, I don’t want to have to deal with an overemotional Scott again.”

Stiles leans over to Derek who’s conveniently sat himself in the chair next to Stiles, and whispers conspiratorially “Lydia always suggests the notebook. I actually hid the DVD, so we can’t watch it anyway”

Derek stares at him, and Stiles realises he’s pretty far into Derek’s personal space. Oops. He pulls back quickly, but decides to act like nothing weird just happened, grinning at Derek and winking.

“We’re watching Star Wars remember, Stiles nearly cried last meeting when I admitted I still hadn’t seen it” Scott chips in, derailing the inevitable movie argument before it can begin.

Stiles grins at Scott. “This is why I love you man”

“You two are gross.” Lydia, says, sitting back and apparently deciding not to contest the movie choice for once. “And just this once I will allow your movie choice, but only because we have company and Derek doesn’t need to see Stiles ugly cry.”

“C’mon Lyds, that was one time! It was totally justified too, c’mon.”

“You had a breakdown because Scott didn’t get any caramel popcorn Stiles, that is not justified.”

“I’d had a bad day, okay!”

“As fun as this is” Allison cuts in, “maybe we should put the movie on and stop embarrassing Stiles anymore, we have company”

“Thank you Allison, you’re my new favourite.”

When Scott finally finds the movie, and starts it playing, Stiles glances over to Derek to see him looking the most relaxed Stiles has ever seen him, muscles a little less tense, a tiny curl to his lip that could suggest a smile. He ends up staring, ever so slightly transfixed by the way he look almost approachable like this, and doesn’t snap out of it until Lydia clears her throat and he jolts his head around to look at her. She raises an eyebrow, and he very pointedly does not acknowledge the knowing smirk on her face.

The movie goes by comfortably, Stiles quoting along with it quietly until Scott throws popcorn at his head. Derek seems to be enjoying it, and that’s a win in Stiles’s book.

When the movie ends, Scott frowns and says “so, there’s two others, right?”

“Yes” Stiles says, at the exact moment Derek says “no”, one of the few words he’s said that night. His voice is looser, less growly than it was earlier, and it’s extremely nice.

At Scott’s lost look, Stiles sighs. “Technically, Derek’s right, there are five more. But there are two more of the originals, that was episode 4 and the other originals are 5 and 6. 1 2 and 3 are kinda prequels, but they’re nowhere near as awesome as 4 5 and 6 and no one should ever watch them first.”

Scott looks like he’s about to protest, or maybe just ask a lot more questions, so Stiles holds up his hand at Scott.

“No, I am the authority on all things Star Wars, and I say we watch them in this order”

“You’re such a nerd.” Scott says fondly, and Stiles grins.

“Love you too man.”

There’s a few moments of comfortable silence from the group, the credits continuing to play on the screen. Lydia eventually breaks it by standing up and announcing she’d better go.

“It’s getting late, and none of us are teenagers who can just stay up all night on movie marathons anymore, we’re adults with jobs. I’m heading home.”

With that she sweeps out of the room, and Stiles shouts after her “love you too Lyds, see you round”

He gets a text a moment later reading ‘you’d better have finished my inscription by tomorrow Stiles’ and he gulps and stands up as he hears Lydia’s car drive away.

“Well I’ve just been unfortunately reminded of a very important job I haven’t gotten around to doing, so I’d better head back. Have a fun night lovebirds- okay that came out wrong but whatever; stop looking at me like that Scott. You coming Derek?”

“Yeah” Derek says, pulling himself up from the chair and dropping his empty popcorn bag carefully into the bin on the way out of the room as he follows Stiles out to the jeep.

“So, I’m sorry if we kinda steamrollered you into staying.”

“It was fine. I haven’t seen Star Wars in a while.” Derek says, climbing into the side of the jeep.

Stiles stares at him for a moment, taking in the relaxed expression on Derek’s face. He gets the feeling that it’s not an expression Derek has all that often, which is probably understandable given the incredible crappitude of his life.

They look at each other for what is probably just erring on the side of too long to be socially acceptable for two people who only met less than a week ago. Eventually Stiles clears his throat, looking away and starting up the car, trying not to blush.

He drops Derek off outside the shop when Derek asks, and watches as he walks off into the night until he’s completely out of sight.  When he’s gone, he rests his head on the door of the shop for a moment, then lets himself in, ready for a night of frantic magic. Ugh, he needs to start a calendar system of something, get a to-do list, this is getting ridiculous. He forgets things he has to do far too often, which ends up in way too many late nights. Lydia was right earlier, they’re not teenagers anymore, and Stiles just wants to collapse in a soft bed at a reasonable hour for once.

……………

When Stiles opens his eyes he groans at the sudden light and shuts them again, before groaning again as the pain from his head sets in.

Everything had been going so well, no one had been murdered or savaged or kidnapped in nearly a month, but their grace period was apparently over. Ugh, why did everyone always kidnap him, it was getting really old.

“He’s awake” says a voice from the corner of the room, and Stiles opens his eyes to glare balefully at the guy who’s standing on the other side of the room. He doesn’t recognise him, but the black clothing accessorised with a small crossbow just scream ‘hunter’.

“What the fuck did you hit me with, a crowbar? Jesus.” He says, his head throbbing. They hadn’t bothered to gag him apparently, though they’ve tied him to a chair and have obviously gone through his pockets. He hopes they haven’t thrown out any of the stuff in there; he had some pretty important ingredients in his pockets.

The guy doesn’t answer him, and another guy walks in. He walks like he’s in charge; so Stiles nicknames him bossman in his head. He decides to christen the other man crow, because now he look closer there actually is a crowbar attached to the guys waistband. Apparently that is what they hit him with. Great.

Bossman walks over to him, towering over him in a way that’s meant to be intimidating. It’s really just a bit gross, Stiles can see right up his nose, and just eww.

“Tell me everything you know about the pack kid, or I’ll get him over there to hit you again with the crowbar”

“Okay, first off, I’d appreciate if you didn’t do the patronising ‘kid’ thing, I’m 25. Secondly-“

He doesn’t get to finish that sentence, because the hunter backhands him across the face.

“Talk kid, or it won’t just be a hit on the face”

“Okay, now, that was a bad idea.” Stiles says, using a small ball of fire he conjures in his hands to burn through the ropes around his wrists and then those on the chair, out of sight of where the hunter can see him. “Cause I’m seriously not a kid, and you two clearly haven’t done any of your research on me. What, did you just see me leaving a wolf’s house and assumed I was just your average human? I’m a fucking warlock. I own a magic shop, and you tied me up with no protective circles and didn’t even gag me, that is just monumentally stupid.”

He pulls his hands out from behind the chair and stands up, kicking the chair backwards and bringing his knee up to connect painfully with bossman’s balls. He falls to the floor and Stiles sends him to sleep with a quick spell. Always best not to kill, no one wants to set off another hunter revenge spiral.

The other guy looks across at Stiles, no longer standing casually. He’s has the crossbow aimed at Stiles, and he opens his mouth, no doubt to start to threaten to pull the trigger, and Stiles is so done with this shit. He was meant to be having a relaxing Saturday in the shop, rearranging some shelves or something. He has dinner planned with his dad later for god’s sake, this is a really bad time for some second rate hunters to kidnap him.

Stiles puts crow to sleep with a wave of his hand then looks down as he hears a sudden gunshot and feels a white hot pain in his arm. “Ouch.” He says, somewhat pointlessly, then turns around, a spell ready to be set free.

There’s a kid in the doorway, holding a gun pointed at Stiles. And this really is a kid, he can’t be older than 10. The gun he’s holding is shaking in his hand, and Stiles is actually impressed the bullet even hit him at all.

“What did you do to my dad” the boy says, voice surprisingly steady, and Stiles tried to make himself look as unthreatening as possible, pressing his hand to his wound to stop the blood.

“It’s okay, he’ll be fine, he’s just sleeping” Stiles says, to at least give the child some sense of relief, before he puts him to sleep as well and makes his way over to bossman’s prone form. He rummages through his pockets until he pulls out a phone, and dials the number he has memorised.

“Hey Scott, can you come get me?”

“Stiles! Where are you, your dad was freaking out, you were meant to meet him like an hour ago!”

“Well, long story short, there’s a new hunter family in town. They’re kinda useless, but I may have gotten shot and I’m losing a lot of blood, so I really need to get to a hospital.”

“Shit” Scott replies, then there’s the sound of him talking to someone else coming faintly across the connection. While Scott sorts out whatever it is he’s doing Stiles walks over to the wall and sits down by it, resting his head against it and closing his eyes for a moment.

“Stiles? You still there man?” Scott’s voice comes across, worried, and Stiles lifts the phone back up to his ear.

“Yup, still here Scotty boy.”

“Allison’s on her way to her dad’s to sort this mess out, me Lydia and Derek are coming to get you.

“How are you gonna find me?” Stiles asks, confused, “and wait, why’s Derek with you?”

There’s a weighted silence, before Lydia’s voice comes over the phone. Apparently he’s on speaker, wonderful.

“I put trackers in the soles of all your shoes after that time with the kelpie, though even if I hadn’t we could just trace the cell you’re calling from. Derek’s here because Scott tracked him down and demanded to know what he’d done to you once he found out you were missing.”

“Firstly that is supremely creepy, and secondly, really Scott?”

“It was a logical assumption! Derek realises that!”

“It’s fine.” Derek adds, voice gruff and uncomfortable but clearly not murderous, so Stiles decides to just leave it. As long as Scott’s not gonna get murdered by their new local alpha, he doesn’t want to know.

“We’ll be there soon; you’d better not die on us okay.” Lydia orders, and Stiles laughs.

“Thanks Lyds, but I’m not gonna die any time soon, it’s just my arm. But I am gonna pass out now” he says, as the blackness starts to eat at the edges of his vision.

When he comes back to consciousness when there’s a crash of the door apparently being broken down, and Scott runs into the room, followed by Lydia and Derek.

Stiles blinks. “Hey Scott.” He mumbles, trying not to look down at the blood he knows is everywhere. “I hate hunters so much. Also, did any of you think to call my dad?”

“Lydia already sorted that.” Scott says, kneeling in front of Stiles.

“Can you go find all my stuff? It’s somewhere around in here, and I really need that shit. No way am I going through the whole horrible process of having to collect some of those ingredients again.”

Scott looks a little conflicted, then he glances back at Derek and Lydia, and at Derek’s nod he stands up and wanders off into the house.

Derek walks over to him, then picks him up with absolutely no warning and apparently very little effort, carrying him bridal style out the house. This is gonna be so embarrassing later.

“Why can’t he just heal himself?” he hears Derek ask Lydia, and Stiles would protest about being talked about like he’s not even there, but he’s kinda comfortable and doesn’t really want to talk.

“Magic rules, he can only heal magically inflicted wounds on himself. Human bullet wounds are unfortunately not in his repertoire. He can heal other people like that, like if I got shot, but it takes a lot out of him, so if he was to try and heal himself of something like that it’d take more energy than he’d have to spare.”

“That’s stupid.” Derek responds, and Stiles snorts.

“Tell me about it” he mumbles, and Derek frowns down at him. His frowny eyebrows are actually hilarious from this angle, and Stiles really wants to just reach up and stroke them, but that would be incredibly weird, so he’s not gonna do that. Also, he doesn’t actually have the energy to lift his arms. Which is good, because the bridal carry is humiliating enough, he doesn’t need any more embarrassment.

They’re suddenly at the car, and Derek’s setting him carefully down in the backseat, and he must pass out again, because he doesn’t remember anything that happens after that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this fic is pretty long, and I haven't finished editing quite yet on the rest, but in a bid to get it posted before s4 I'm posting this part today, and each successive part/chapter over the next 3 or so days. I nearly cried when I finished writing this fic, because it took over my life for a little while there.  
> [Come sob with me over s4 and Derek Hale's life of pain on tumblr](http://charimiel.tumblr.com)


	2. Part II

He comes to in a hospital room, and he groans.

“Son?” he hears, and when he opens his eyes he sees his dad hovering over the bed.

“Heeey dad. How’s it going?”

His dad sighs, and cuffs Stiles lightly on the head. “I wish you’d stop doing this, son.”

“Hey, it’s not deliberate! I got shot!”

“Stiles, this is the second time in two months. One of the nurses asked me if I’d considered the possibility you might be in a gang this morning. Lydia never gets injured on these supernatural ventures.”

“I was kidnapped!”

“Son, can you just-” his dad sighs, and stands up. “I have to head into the station; I’m on shift in” he glances at his watch “oh, half an hour ago. Try to avoid getting shot, or impaled, or drugged, or anything like that while I’m gone okay. Melissa says you don’t need to stay in the hospital; your arm’ll be fine as long as you keep it in the sling, but can you just take it easy for once? For the sake of my sanity?”

His dad doesn’t even let him answer before leaving the room, and Stiles groans again, not wanting to leave the bed. He barely gets a minute of peace before Melissa is in the room, pulling back the covers on the bed and shooing him out.

“Off you go, Scott’s outside with your friends and some new guy who I’m assuming is the Derek Hale Scott mentioned. I do not want to know, just get out of here.” She says, but she pats him on the shoulder of his uninjured arm as he passes her.

He’s still wearing his shoes, because apparently Beacon Hills hospital doesn’t take patients shoes off before putting them in their beds, and seriously what? Are they preparing in case another coma patient decides to go walkabouts? They really don’t need another Peter.

“Stiles!” Scott exclaims when he rounds the corner, like he didn’t already know Stiles was coming. Scott probably heard his mom sending Stiles out the room. Then again, Allison’s showed up, so he was probably distracted.

“Hey Scotty. How’s it going? Good day?”

“”I’m glad you’re okay man” Scott says, pulling him in for one of their rare bro-hugs.

“Seriously? It wasn’t even a bad wound, c’mon.”

“Shut up Stiles, you know none of us like it when you end up in here” Lydia says, and Stiles rolls his eyes.

“It’s not like I do it deliberately!”

“Just try and avoid it a bit more effectively next time, okay?” Lydia orders, sighing, and Stiles wonders why the women in his life are always ordering him to do things.

“My dad sorted everything out with the hunters, they won’t be coming back.” Allison tells him, finally moving the conversation on, and they start to walk outside.

“Hey man, thanks for carrying me and everything.” Stiles says to Derek, falling into step next to him when Lydia starts questioning Allison about what her father said. Apparently they hadn’t had time to discuss the hunter diplomacy part of this situation yet. “You didn’t need to stick around at the hospital y’know”

“It’s fine. I wanted to see you were okay.” Derek says, tone uncomfortable, but sincere.

Stiles is a little shocked by that, but before he can even think of anything to say to that Derek’s getting in his (extremely beautiful, goddamn) car and driving off like if he sticks around for too long the feelings might get to be too much for him.

“I’ll give you a lift home” Scott says, grabbing Stiles’s uninjured arm and pulling him towards his jeep. “I dropped your stuff off there already, and some guy left a very angry message about cedar wood or something?”

“Ugh.” Stiles says, then gets in the car. He does not want to deal with customers right now, but unfortunately singlehandedly running a shop means he doesn’t have much choice.

…………

When he wakes up the next morning, stabbing pain in his arm and his head throbbing with the worst headache since the birth of humanity, he seriously considers just lying in bed and ignoring his responsibilities all day. Unfortunately, he predicted he’d feel this way in the morning, so past him thought it’d be a fantastic idea to set up about 10 different alarms. On different devices, in different rooms. He wonders if there’s a time travel spell or something he could use to go back to the night before and punch his younger self in the face, because that was a dick move on his part really.

When he’s struggled out of the bed, and trudged his way around the room turning off various blaring alarms, his head feels marginally better, which is probably just because of the lack of the horrible cacophony of sounds he woke up to, but he’ll take his victories where he can get them.

He makes himself a large mug of coffee, and gets ready for the day, dressing in his most comfortable sweats and the largest hoodie he owns. It’s difficult getting dressed without the use of one arm, but it says something about his life that he manages because he’s had to do so before.

He glances in the mirror before he heads downstairs to open up, and winces. He looks like shit, bruising on his cheekbone from where the hunter had hit him, dark shadows under his eyes, hair wild and skin horrifically pale. He bruises easily, which always makes him look worse than he really is, but his current appearance is pretty reflective of how shitty he fees this morning.

When he’s opened up the shop, and finished his mug of coffee, and taken a handful of painkillers, he feels a bit better, but decides against working on any magic this morning. He just knows he won’t be able to keep his concentration up, and then he’ll fuck it up and it’ll all blow up in his face and he’ll end up feeling even worse.

So he ends up sitting behind the counter, head resting on his arm as he half dozes. A few people come in the shop, buy a few things, ask questions, and the cedar guy from the other day calls back with an apology for the tone of his previous message and a request for a consultation (which he grants, and arranges for Wednesday afternoon), but the morning is quiet and Stiles is able to just rest for a while.

It’s about midday, and Stiles is considering getting up to go find himself some food, when Derek comes in the shop. Stiles still has his head on the counter, so he doesn’t realise the someone who enters the shop is Derek until he clears his throat from right in front of him and Stiles startles upwards. He hadn’t heard anyone approaching the desk, but apparently Derek can move completely silently.

“Hey Derek.” He says, “What’re you doing here?”

Derek looks awkward again, which is getting to be a thing around Stiles, and he feels a little guilty for putting the guy out of his comfort zone so often. He doesn’t say anything, so Stiles makes a deduction from the way his eyes are running over Stiles, obviously cataloguing his injuries. “Come to check up on me eh?”

Derek looks right into Stiles eyes, and Stiles tries very hard not to blush, or do anything embarrassing, or fall off his stool. Which probably comes under the umbrella of something embarrassing but sue him, there aren’t that many things he can do that aren’t embarrassing. Especially when Derek’s looking at him all intently and not saying anything.

He clears his throat. “Uh, so, did you want anything else?” he asks, trying to keep his voice normal. He partly succeeds, it’s still a little higher than usual, but it’s close enough that Derek probably won’t notice.

“I was just in the neighbourhood.”

That’s not really an answer to Stiles’s question, but he’ll take it.

“Did you want something to eat? I was just gonna make myself a sandwich, I can make you one too?” he asks after it becomes apparent that Derek’s not planning on saying anything else.

Derek looks a little surprised, but nods. “Sure, if it’s not too much trouble.” He says, after a pause, and Stiles carefully dismounts from the stool, now is not the time to fall on his ass. It’s never really the time to fall on his ass, but with his current injuries it’s even more important that he at least tries to stay upright.

He heads into the back and through to his kitchen, Derek following him when Stiles looks back and asks “you coming?”

He grabs what he needs and puts together a couple of sandwiches pretty fast for someone with only one hand, putting them on plates and handing one to Derek. He sits himself down at the small table he has, on one of two chairs, and Derek follows his lead, pulling out the chair opposite (which is also the only other chair. Stiles doesn’t get many visitors, the pack tends to meet at Scott and Allison’s because of their huge collection of comfy chairs.)

They eat in silence, Stiles for once not filling the silence with talking in favour of eating. He’s starving, thinking back he hadn’t actually gotten around to eating the previous evening before collapsing, and he nearly always skips breakfast, so he hasn’t eaten anything in approaching 24 hours. He doesn’t eat as much now as he did in high school, when he was practicing for lacrosse practice, going through puberty, and running away from psychotic alpha werewolves, but he still eats a lot and has a pretty large appetite.

“That looks bad.” Derek says, gesturing at Stiles’s face, when they’ve both finished eating.

“Nah, it looks way worse than it is. I bruise easy. Doesn’t even hurt.” Stiles says lightly, waving his free arm as if to swat Derek’s concern away.

Silence returns, and Stiles starts to feel awkward. So he does what he usually does in silences- he starts talking.

“So, I’m sorry if Scott was a dick or anything to you yesterday, he was just worried about me y’know? And I’m sorry if I bled on your clothes or anything, I tend to do that. Also, you have a really nice car; I hadn’t seen it before yesterday at the hospital. It never occurred to me you’d actually have a car? And- oh god say something please before I keep on babbling and say something actually embarrassing”

The corner of Derek’s mouth is curved up slightly, like he’s amused despite himself, and Stiles gets a little distracted by it. He kinda wants to lick it, or maybe just feel what it’d be like to kiss Derek’s mouth when he’s smiling like that and- oh, definitely thinking of something else before Derek smells the change in Stiles’s scent. Fucking werewolves.

Thankfully he hears the sound of the door opening in the main shop, and takes that as an excuse to head back out to the counter in case the customer needs something. He doesn’t run away, he walks out the room at a sensible pace thank you very much.

It turns out to be one of his regulars -when he’s in town at least, Jaime is more of a roaming satyr than a territorial one- and Stiles raises his hand in greeting.

“Thanks for the sandwich.” Derek says from behind him, and he has a mini heart attack at the shock Jesus, Derek can move quietly. He spins around to meet the eyes of a slightly amused Derek; he probably just heard Stiles’s heart skip a beat at the surprise.

“Um, you’re welcome? Thanks for checking up on me I guess.” Stiles says, biting his lip before he can start babbling about something embarrassing again.

Derek stands in front of him for a moment, before nodding and starting to walk away, and Stiles has a sudden thought.

“Wait, did you want my number? So next time you can just text or something if you want to know I’m not dead, y’know.” he says, in an unexpected flare of bravery.

Derek stares for a moment, and Stiles feels the need to further defend his question, so he does.

“I mean, if we have each other’s numbers, next time there’s  supernatural crisis we can just call you to see if you know anything about it, Scott won’ have to ‘track you down’ like last time. Which would require me having your number and not you having mine, but we could just exchange numbers? Do you have a phone? Stupid question, you must have a phone, everyone has a phone nowadays.”

Derek cuts him off by practically throwing his phone in Stiles’s face, pushing it in front of him so Stiles has to take it.

“Just put your number in and send yourself a text” he says gruffly, and Stiles can’t read his eyebrows well enough yet to tell what that particular frown means, but he wants to know. God, he wants to learn Derek’s eyebrow language, this is starting to get into dangerous territory. It’s one thing to find the guy attractive; having a high school Lydia Martin level crush on him is a whole other fucking ballpark. One which Stiles would love to avoid, but Stiles’s brain never has been great at self-preservation.

He pulls up the contact list on Derek’s phone and puts himself in, and for good measure puts Scott in as well. If Derek wants to reach Allison he can just call Scott, and giving Lydia’s phone number away without her permission is practically asking for castration.

He sends a quick text to himself, noting that Derek’s phone is sadly short of contacts, and hands the phone back to Derek, feeling his own cell vibrating in his pocket at the text. He silently thanks whatever deities there are out there that he’d decided not to go with a werewolf themed text alert. His ringtone is a whole other story, but everyone has dumb ringtones these days, it’d be way weirder if he didn’t.

Derek stands in front of the counter for a few moments before Jaime-  who he’d completely forgotten about- clears his throat from behind Derek. Derek nods once, turns around, and walks out without so much as a goodbye. Rude much? He glares at Jaime.

“You couldn’t’ve waited just a few more minutes?”

“I’d already been standing there for a few minutes Stiles. You two probably would’ve just stared at each other for another 10 minutes if I hadn’t done something, and I do have things to do.”

Stile narrows his eyes. “I can refuse to sell these to you y’know.”

“What happened to the customer is always right?”

“Shut up.” Stiles says, as he wraps Jaime’s items up and carefully places them in a bag. He’s blushing, but he refuses to acknowledge it, that would be a sign of weakness. He will not show weakness in front of moment ruining satyrs. No way. Even if they’re probably right.

………

Derek texts him every day for a week at 11 o’clock exactly, a blunt “okay?” Stiles would make a John Green reference back, but he doesn’t know how well that’d go down. Doesn’t know if Derek would even recognise the reference, and fuck, he wants to know. Has Derek read John Green? Does Derek read? He sends a quick “fine” back to each one, and tries not to think about starting a conversation, and what it’d be like.

He’s spending an alarming amount of time thinking about Derek now, and this thing is definitely in dangerous crush territory, and he’s almost glad Derek isn’t coming in to check on him in person, because there’s the whole werewolves can smell emotions thing. Stiles doesn’t want Derek to know how much he wants to find out what Derek’s favourite book is, and what Derek looks like in the mornings, and- okay, stop thinking about it. Think about something else.

He’s in the middle of a slight freak out over how quickly this has devolved into ‘serious feelings’ territory (which shouldn’t really be surprising, he’d decided he was in love with Lydia Martin the first time he saw her in the playground in third grade), when he feels someone new walk into the shop through his wards, and abruptly remembers that it’s wednesday afternoon, and he has an appointment with cedar guy. Who, upon closer inspection as he walks up to the counter (if this is him, which it probably is, since not many people come into his shop on a wednesday afternoon and it’s the exact time he’d agreed to meet him) is actually a cedar guy. As in, a tree nymph, specifically a cedar nymph judging by the gilded tree branch hanging around his neck.

“I have an appointment?” the guy asks, and Stiles was right, this is definitely cedar guy.

He stands up, sets up the little sign on his desk he has for these occasions (reading ‘in the back, feel free to browse, will return in the next half an hour’), and heads to the back room where he holds his appointments, with a polite “of course, follow me”.

When they’re settled in Stiles’s kitchen, on the two chairs, cedar guy introduces himself as June. “short for juniper, not actually a girl’s name” he adds, clearly out of habit, and Stiles smiles.

By the time the appointment is over Stiles is sure of two things- Beacon Hills is the actual hellmouth, and wood nymphs are surprisingly normal modern people/things/creatures.

There’s apparently something in the woods that’s been attacking June’s friends- and Stiles almost wishes he’d said brethren, but wood nymphs are more normal than Stiles apparently. Stiles totally would’ve said brethren. Dammit, when did he get weirder than a wood nymph?

Anyway, something is in the woods, attacking the other wood nymphs, and none of the children of the forest (once again Stiles’s words, June had just said trees) can work out what it is. Looks like Stiles is going to be trekking through the woods again. If he’s lucky, this time no one will get mauled, or bitten, or set on fire. Then again, this is Stiles’s life; the odds of violent death in the woods are pretty damn high.

………………

Running out of the woods as fast as he can the next night, he wonders what his life would’ve been like if he hadn’t started up a magic shop and had just gone to MIT like Danny. He could’ve gotten in; his grades were fantastic when he left high school. He probably wouldn’t’ve been spending his wednesday nights running away from murderous axe murderer spirits. Seriously, what is up with this town? Is there something in the water? Are they all under some horrific cure that can only be lifted by the sacrifice of a being pure of heart? Speaking of which, do unicorns exist? He’ll have to look into that one. He probably ought to know, in case he ever has to sacrifice one in the name of peace.

He keeps running all the way through town until he gets back to the shop, shutting himself inside and slumping down on the floor. God, his arm hurts. He probably should’ve left the running through the woods until he’d healed a bit more from the bullet wound in his arm. He’ll keep that in mind next time. Actually, he probably won’t. He never has been good at self-preservation. It’s not even a post werewolf thing; he’s always been shit at it. Like the time in chem lab when he’d spilled concentrated acid on his hand, and just ignored it to finish his experiment, until it started to actually burn. He hadn’t been able to use his left hand for two days. At least it was his left hand, he guesses.

He rests his head back on the door, and breaths deeply until he’s no longer gasping for air.

After about five minutes of sitting on the floor, he feels recovered enough to stand up again, so he does, and makes his way upstairs to his room. He desperately needs to crash, so he sends out a quick text to the rest of the pack to meet him in the shop tomorrow morning (or technically today morning, it’s gone midnight) and changes into sleep clothes, collapsing into bed and almost immediately falling asleep.

He wakes up the next morning to his phone ringing, and groans, recognising the ringtone he has programmed in for Lydia.

“Morning?” he says, when he picks up the phone, and there’s a very pointed pause from the other end.

“Stilinski, you’d better get your ass out of that bed I know you’re still in, I’m on my way over, like you asked last night, and I’d appreciate not having to let myself in.”

“Shit!” Stiles exclaims, practically falling out of bed and hanging up the phone. He’d forgotten about the message he’d sent last night. He flicks to his inbox, because he has a message from Scott, sent the previous evening, saying they’ll be at the shop at 10, which is in- about 5 minutes. Brilliant.

He rushes getting dressed, and is just pouring himself coffee when he hears the door of the shop opening as Scott lets himself in, Allison right behind him. Stiles hands them both their own mugs of coffee.

“Lydia’ll be here in about 5 minutes. Something suddenly occurs to him then. “Should I tell Derek to come too?”

“Your call man” Scott says, inhaling the steam that rises from his mug. “I have no idea what this is even about.”

“I’ll text him, we might as well have as much backup as possible” Stiles muses absently, pulling his phone out and firing off a quick text to Derek, reading ‘supernatural crisis- you in? At the shop asap if yes’. They probably won’t need the extra backup, hopefully this spirit won’t be too hard to deal with, but life has taught Stiles that every time he tries to deal with something simple, it spirals out of control, and before they know it people are being kidnapped, he’s not slept in a week and someone’s in the hospital.

The text he gets back reads ‘5 minutes’ and nothing else, and Stiles guesses that means Derek’s in.

There’s a knock on the door exactly 5 minutes later and Stiles opens it to let Derek in. He stands awkwardly in Stiles’s kitchen, Scott and Allison have taken the chairs and there’s nowhere else to really sit, but Stiles makes him a cup of coffee and hands it to him, leaning against the counter, and Derek follows his lead and leans next to him.

Lydia shows up only a couple of minutes after that, and raises an eyebrow at Derek’s presence but doesn’t say anything. She perches herself on the table, between Scott and Allison, and gestures for Stiles to talk.

“So essentially, there’s the spirit of a murderous axe wielding woodcutter in the woods attacking the wood nymphs.”

“And how do you know this?” Lydia asks, rolling with it like they’ve all learnt to do in a crisis.

“June told me about the attacks, he’s a cedar wood nymph I had an appointment with yesterday, and I went to check it out last night and got chased out of the woods by said spirit.”

Scott nods, then asks “so, how do we get rid of it?”

“Salt and burn the body” Lydia says, and Stiles grins.

“One thing Supernatural got right. Pretty much the only thing Supernatural got right.” He adds, because Scott gets this little sad look on his face whenever he mentions that show. He used to love it before he turned, but after becoming a creature of the night he couldn’t watch the show without feeling sorry for all the monsters. Stiles however has no such qualms about watching it, it’s not like he takes it for fact.

He glances at Derek next to him, and has to resist the urge to burst out laughing, because his face looks hilarious, conflicted between confusion and disbelief. When Derek looks at him and catches him staring and trying not to laugh, he scowls, but mutters “your lives are insane. How is this normal?”

“Welcome to Beacon Hills man” Scott says, raising his coffee in a mock toast at Derek. “Or, welcome back I guess.”

Allison decides get the conversation back on track, having already drained her coffee, and speaks for the first time. Allison’s not a morning person, but the caffeine appears to have done its job at last.

“Can we get back on track? How do we find the body to salt and burn?”

“Well, about that, bad news is we’re probably going to have to go take a good look at the ghost guy for some clues, I was too preoccupied with fleeing for my life last night to get a good look.”

“What’s the good news?” Scott asks, optimistic as always, and Stiles bites his lip.

“Uh… chances are it won’t be able to violently murder all of us?”

“Why couldn’t I have been born somewhere boring? Where nothing ever happens. Somewhere in Canada maybe?” Scott moans, dropping his head to the table.

“You’d probably’ve been eaten by Sasquatch by now, Scotty.” Stiles points out. “Fairly sure between all of us we have the shittiest luck in all of the US”

“Shut up Stiles.” Lydia says, jumping down off the table. “Well, are we going to investigate or not?”

“Sure, let me grab some salt first. Always best to be prepared.” Stiles says absently, flicking open a cupboard and frowning at the random collection of kitchen ingredients. One day his disorganisation is actually gonna get him killed, rather than just cause mild inconvenience, and when that day comes he will be so pissed at past him for not sorting his shit out.

Derek opens another cupboard, and pulls out a bag of salt almost immediately, handing it to Stiles.

Stiles stares for a moment, before it hits him. “Oh, super-sniffer. Forgot about that. Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

Stiles pours and handful of salt into his pocket, hopefully he’ll remember that’s in there before he washes these jeans, then gestures for the group to leave his kitchen, leaving the bag on the counter. He locks up the shop when they’re all outside, putting up his ‘closed for a crisis’ sign he’d had to make only a week after opening the shop, when Scott had pissed off a phoenix. There’d been a lot of fire that time.

They walk through town as a group, Stiles in front with Lydia on one side and surprisingly Derek on the other, Scott and Allison a few metres behind, in their own world like usual. It’s nice, what they have. It’d been irritating in high school, when Scott had never shut up about her eyelashes and the way she blinked or whatever the else he used to wax poetic about, but Stiles is glad they have something normal and constant in their lives now. He’s also incredibly thankful Allison’s dad isn’t trying to kill them anymore.

Lydia smirks at him, her eyes flicking to Derek momentarily in what’s undoubtedly a significant way, and Stiles narrows his eyes at her.

“So, Stiles.” She starts, and Stiles suddenly gets the feeling this is going to be incredibly embarrassing. Shit, had he done something to piss her off recently? “How’s Danny these days?”

“How would I know Lyds, I haven’t seen him in weeks.” He sighs.

“Danny was Stiles’s boyfriend” she explains to Derek, and Derek looks a little like he’d rather be walking at the back with the lovebirds than in this conversation. Stiles feels pretty much the same way.

“He wasn’t my boyfriend Lyds, I told you”

“Oh yes, how did you put it? Two dudes helping each other out, was it?”

“Is this because I messed up the spelling on your last inscription? I said I’d do you a new one.”

“I’m just making conversation.”

Derek interrupts the conversation with a slightly confused “I thought you two were dating?” and Stiles stops walking. Lydia grabs his arm and pulls him forward before Scott runs into him. Stiles bursts out laughing.

“No way! Ha Lyds, clearly someone thinks I’m good enough for you.”

“Well. He would.” Lydia mutters, and Stiles wonders what the hell that’s supposed to mean.

“We’re totally not dating. I had a crush on her in high school, but she’s like my second best bro now. My sister from another mister and all that” he adds just to piss her off, Lydia looks like she’s swallowed a lemon. “Anyway, Lydia’s dating jackoff.”

“Will you stop calling him that?”

“Only when he stops calling me and Scott testicles.”

Derek’s staring at them both, looking adorably confused- oh, whoa, did he just call Derek adorable? Shut the hell up brain, stop thinking embarrassing things for fucks sake.

“Stiles and Scott have something of an antagonistic relationship with my boyfriend.” Lydia explains, presumably since Stiles has stopped talking in favour of staring at Derek. Oops. “We were never dating, and Stiles is about as gay as the new bartender at jungle.”

“That’s the gay club downtown.” Stiles adds, then flushes. God, he never does know when to shut his mouth.

“I am from here, you know.” Derek points out and Stiles can feel himself turning redder. Thankfully, he’s saved from having to carry on this train wreck of a conversation by their arrival at the edge of the woods near to the place he’d come across the ghost last night.

 “Oh look, we’re here” Stiles points out, rather uselessly.

They head into the forest cautiously, looking out for any murderous ghosts. They don’t come across any, but they do conveniently come across a headstone only a few metres from where Stiles had first seen the ghost. He digs up the grave with a spell, and drops the salt onto the body before setting it on fire. When he looks up from the body, he catches Scott’s gaze.

“Don’t say it.” he says, to Scott, but he just looks apologetically over and says it anyway, because Scott apparently hasn’t learned that bad things always happen whenever anyone says that phrase.

“This just seemed like it was too easy.”

Of course, because this is their lives, that’s the exact moment a ring of runes appears on the ground around them, a perfect circle of glowing symbols, flashing blue and white and generally making Stiles pretty fucking uneasy.

Derek steps forward, as if to try and cross them, and Stiles throws his hand out to stop him, arm across his chest to keep him in place. “Don’t!” he exclaims, recognising some of the runes. There are a hell of lot of references to pain in there, and he sees the word boundary flick in and out of sight in front of him.

“I’d listen to your mage if I were you.” Comes an ominous voice from the other side of the clearing, and, c’mon. What is it with the villains in this town that they have to try and be as overdramatic as possible? Wouldn’t it be more efficient to just get over with whatever you’re planning to do? People just aren’t appreciative enough of the fact that Stiles is a ‘good guy’, as Scott would say. If he was the villain, everyone would probably be dead by now.

“Hey there, fancy stopping with the overdramatics?” he says, still inspecting the runes, looking for a weak spot, and a figure shifts at the edge of the woods, then emerges from the darkness. It’s a smirking woman Stiles recognises from a few weeks ago, she’d visited the shop, looked around for about an hour, then left before buying anything. Apparently she’s actually an evil drama queen. Great.

He sees a flicker of movement behind him, and before he can even blink, there’s one of Allison’s crossbow bolts flying out from behind him, past his head, heading directly for the woman’s heart. Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. It never is. The bolt shatters in mid-air, above the rune circle, and that confirms Stiles’s theory about the barrier thing at least. The witch- she’s undoubtedly a witch going by the attire and rune work- laughs, and Stiles narrows his eyes at her.

“There’s more than one signature in these runes.” He points out, and as if waiting on a cue, four other women step out from the clearing. They’re a range of ages, the eldest plump with greying hair, the youngest no doubt a teenager judging by the miniskirt and abundance of spots.

“You’re a coven.” Lydia says, and- oh. That makes a hell of a lot of sense. No witch on their own would be able to perform this strength of magic, not without some reserve of power to call on- Stiles could do it, if he tapped into the strength of their pseudo-pack, but definitely not on his own.

“Well done” the teenager drawls, looking bored, and the first witch- most likely the coven leader- shoots a glare at her.

“What do you want?” Scott asks, ever the voice of reason, and Stiles suddenly doesn’t like the way all five witches are staring at him. He takes a step back, closer to the group, pulling Derek back with him, because his arm’s still across Derek’s chest. He’s not really sure how he forgot his arm was there, but this is a legitimately high stress situation, so he can let himself off, just this once. He does let his arm drop though, and doesn’t miss the way Lydia’s eyes narrow at him. If they get out of this alive, she’s gonna be interrogating him, he just knows it.

“Let’s just say we’re on a recruitment drive” the leader says, smirking, and Stiles really doesn’t like where this is going. So he starts talking- it’s his defence mechanism in a crisis, sometimes it even works well as a distraction.

“So, you raised an axe murdering ghost from the dead just so you could lure me and my pack out here, so you could offer me a place in your coven, after trapping us in a circle which may or may not cause agonising pain whenever someone tries to cross it. Your recruitment strategies are really flawless; they’re really making me want to join your coven.”

“We don’t need you to be willing.” The witch points out, and Stiles knows that okay, but he also knows that covens aren’t usually any bigger than five.

“Why do you even need anyone else, you look like you’ve got a good group going here. Unless you’re looking to trade, in which case- no. Just no.”

“If we had any other choice we wouldn’t be here you brat.” The oldest witch hisses, and suddenly she seems a lot more menacing than before when she’d just looked like a kind old grandmother.

“There are certain spells which require- uh, certain, ‘essences’ which we can’t provide.”

That takes a moment to sink in, and then Stiles is kinda grossed out. “Are you fucking kidding me? You’re kidnapping me for my dick?”

Lydia reaches over and slaps him on the back of the head, which would seem like a normal reaction to Stiles being an idiot, but they’ve been in enough life or death situations that the pack have formed a non-verbal communication system. Derek will have no idea what’s going on in the next few minutes, but everyone else knows to be prepared.

When the witch opens her mouth, no doubt to monologue about some evil plan to take over the world using Stiles’s ‘essences’, Lydia cuts her off by opening hers and screaming.

The thing about Lydia is her screams aren’t just loud and piercing. It took her a few years to figure it all out, but she’s pretty much got control of the banshee stuff now, and this scream is the kind of scream designed to incapacitate, or at last disorientate. While the witches are distracted, trying to block it out by clasping their hands over their ears, Stiles sends a blast of magic at the keystone rune, the one reading boundary, when it appears in front of him as Lydia had no doubt realised it would. Stiles may be the one with magical powers, but Lydia still has pretty much all the knowledge.

The barrier falls apart almost instantly, and Allison has her crossbow up, firing a warning shot by the leader’s ear. Derek and Scott are shifted, and Stiles fills his hand with a blue flame just to appear intimidating next to them, and not just look like a useless idiot. The witches run away like the devil’s on their heels, and Stiles puts out the fire.

Lydia stops screaming, rubbing at her throat and frowning. “You owe me ice cream Stilinski; you know I hate doing that.”

“There’s already a tub of your favourite in my freezer” he says, grinning at her and high fiving Scott when he shifts back and Stiles won’t end up losing his hand to the claws.

“What…” Derek trails off, and Stiles should maybe explain some stuff. “Why wasn’t…”

“Why weren’t you affected by Lydia’s big bad scary scream? That would be all me. It’s a good job you’re wearing that pendant I gave you, it’s spelled so she can’t affect you.”

“Thanks for the back-up man.” Scott says, holding his hand out to Derek, who shakes it looking bemused. “Come on, we’re going for milkshakes, it’s a post-fight ritual.”

“Stiles is paying.” Allison adds, and he sighs.

“Fine, freeloaders.”

“You know the deal” she points out, and unfortunately, yes, he does know the deal. Whoever discovers the crisis pays for milkshakes afterwards. It’s a pretty irritating rule, considering Stiles discovers supernatural crises a lot more often than the others, mainly due to the fact that he essentially runs a consulting business for creatures with them.

They head out of the woods as a group, Derek waking next to Stiles again and still looking a little lost.

“Yes, we did just get ambushed by a coven of witches who were after my semen, if you’re trying to wrap your head around this. Just stop thinking about it, the more you think about the shit that goes on in this town, the less sense it makes.”

“Man, your face when she used the word essences” Scott says. “I wish I could’ve taken a picture, you looked so disgusted.”

“That’s because it’s disgusting Scott!” Stiles protests and they fall into a friendly bickering as they walk back to town, Derek even occasionally joining in the conversation. It’s nice.

When they get to the diner and push open the doors, the server immediately recognises them. Considering they only come here after dealing with crises, that definitely says something about the number of crises they deal with.

They head over to their usual spot, a table by the windows with two benches and a chair that Lydia always claims for her own. Normally Stiles gets one of the benches to himself, and Scott and Allison squeeze up on the opposite one, not minding the fact that they end up with barely any room to move. They all slide into their usual seats, before it occurs to Stiles that there’s an extra person with them today.

Derek stands by the table awkwardly, like he’s not entirely sure if he’s welcome, so Stiles pats the side of his bench, sliding along to make at least some room. Derek still doesn’t look sure, but at Stiles’s eyebrow raise he sits down without a protest. It’s then that Stiles realises that maybe this wasn’t the best idea if he wants to not embarrass himself in front of the guy he’s crushing on. Yes, he’s accepted it now, admitted it to himself, or whatever, he’s crushing on Derek.

There’s no space for Stiles to move over any further, so they end up with their legs and shoulders pressed together, right in each other’s personal space. Stiles can feel Lydia’s eyes on his face and he flips her off without looking.

“Your usual?” their server says, and he looks up to see her stifling a laugh from behind Lydia.

“Yeah, plus whatever Derek wants.” He says, when no one from around the table protests. The lovebirds are busy getting lost in each other’s eyes, and Lydia and Derek are engaged in some sort of terrifying but also terrifyingly hot staring contest. He doesn’t want to know.

When Derek doesn’t offer any insight into his milkshake preferences, Stiles elbows him in the side. He barely has to even move to do it; his elbows are already pressed against Derek. It’s more like he nudges him to be honest.

Derek looks away from Lydia; jaw clenched, and looks at Stiles questioningly.

“Milkshake?” Stiles quickly asks, before he can get lost in Derek’s eyes again. They’re pretty damn close, and it would be so easy to just lean forward a little bit and kiss Derek, and he’s very pointedly ignoring that face okay, they’re in a diner full of people at a table with all his friends and Stiles would like to keep his currently only functioning arm attached to his body thank you very much.

Derek looks at the server and says “strawberry”, and Stiles has to physically drag his eyes away from the stubble that’s suddenly right in front of his face, ridiculously inviting. Lydia catches his eye, then pulls out her phone. A moment later his phone buzzes in his pocket, and he pulls it out.

‘On a scale of Aladdin to Danny senior year, how badly are you crushing right now?’ Lydia’s sent him, and he wills himself to not turn red and glares at her, but replies anyway, because Lydia won’t actually say anything. She’s not that evil.

‘Lydia Martin third grade level’

“You are screwed Stilinski.” Lydia says out loud, before reaching over to slap Scott on the head. “Stop with the eyes of love and enjoy the celebration”

Allison pats Scott on the arm, and starts asking Lydia questions about Jackson which Stiles doesn’t actually care about, so he tunes their conversation out. He’s almost fully zoned out when something suddenly hits him.

“Wait, did you just order a strawberry milkshake?” he asks, turning to look at Derek, closeness be damned. Derek blinks.

“I like them”

“Seriously, that’s adorable. That’s like the best thing that’s happened all week oh my god, you seriously do not give off ‘I like strawberry milkshake vibes’ man.”

Derek lust raises his eyebrows at Stiles in an extremely unimpressed look. “Do you need a minute to reconsider your world view? Write about it in your diary?” he snarks, and damn that’s even hotter than Derek’s face, Stiles loves it when people snark back at him.

“Dear diary, today Derek Hale drank a strawberry milkshake and it was the colour of his ears when I embarrassed him about it” Stiles sing-songs because it’s true, the tips of Derek’s ears are flushed in definite embarrassment.

“Your diary hear a lot about me then?” Derek asks, the tips of his ears turning even redder, presumably at his embarrassment being noticed.

“Of course, I write about you all the time my darling. Dear diary, today Derek Hale looked at me, and it was such a perfect moment I nearly stopped breathing.” He says, making his voice deliberately breathy, and then he burst out laughing at the looks on Derek’s face, like he’s not sure if he wants to laugh or be generally horrified. He thinks he sees the corner of Derek’s mouth twitch up a little, but doesn’t get the chance to properly check before the waitress is back, carrying a tray of milkshakes and setting them down in front of each of them.

Stiles reaches for his wallet at the exact same time Derek reaches for his, and Stiles pulls out his own before hitting Derek on the arm. “Put that away, I’m paying, did you miss that part?” He looks at the server. “He’s new.” She rolls her eyes at him, but can see she’s reluctantly amused. He hands her a couple of bills, tipping generously, because his dad raised him right okay. “My crisis, hence my milkshakes.” Stiles explains.  “If you want to pay then you have to be the one who drags us all out of our busy lives to some place in the middle of the woods”

Derek looks at him for longer than is really necessary, before nodding and turning to his milkshake. Stiles sighs, glad to have the piercing eyes off of his face, and sucks his straw into his mouth, chewing the end, and taking a long sip of his (absolutely delicious) raspberry and white chocolate milkshake.

“So, what’s your real name?” Derek just comes out with, completely out of the fucking blue, and Stiles nearly chokes. When he’s done sputtering, he glares at Derek.

“You couldn’t’ve waited until I didn’t have milkshake in my mouth?” he bitches, wiping at his mouth, and Derek looks pretty close to laughing. Well, at least someone enjoys his pain.

“I didn’t know it was that big of a deal that you’d nearly kill yourself over it.”

“Stiles doesn’t use his real name.” Scott says, apparently oblivious to sexual tension. Or at least, one sided sexual tension. Stiles just wants to kiss the goddamn attractive smirk off Derek’s face. God, this is getting embarrassing.

“You wouldn’t use your real name if it was as horrific as mine.” Stiles grumbles, taking another sip from his glass and slouching a little in his chair. It puts his head right by Derek’s shoulder, and it would be so easy just to let it tip to the side and rest his head on Derek. He sits upright almost immediately after having that thought and glares sullenly at his glass.

“Whatever you’re convincing yourself the milkshake has done, it was probably you being an idiot.” Lydia says. Stiles takes another angry sip, and almost bites through the straw as he chews on it.

“Why do you all derive some kind of horrible joy from my pain?” he mutters and glances up. Derek looks up abruptly, his eyes quickly flicking up from where they’d been watching Stiles molest his straw, probably in disgust. He looks a little zoned out, so Stiles nudges him. “You should probably drink your milkshake. Before it gets all warm. Or I accidently knock it over.”

“He’s got a point. It’s happened before.” Lydia says, and Stiles pouts exaggeratedly.

“I knocked your milkshake over one time! And I paid for it anyway. And for a new one.”

Lydia, unsurprisingly, ignores his protests, and instead finishes her milkshake off before glancing outside.

“Well, this has been fun. I’ll be over some time for that ice cream you promised me Stiles. Got to go, Jackson’s outside.” She says, standing up and walking out in her traditional dramatic fashion.

“She just can’t say goodbye like a normal person, can she?” Allison comments, and Stiles narrows his eyes at her.

“You’re one to talk, miss ‘dramatic walk out of the room after pocketing a knife’” he points out, and Allison looks confused for a fraction of a second before she remembers.

“I wanted to make an impression. C’mon, it worked didn’t it. Derek?”

Scott stars adoringly at his true forever soul mate or whatever he’s deciding to call them at the moment. “Everything you do works” he says, soppily, before Derek can respond, and Allison grins, leaning over to kiss him, and Stiles is done here.

“Yo, budge over, I’m getting out of here before they get sweeter than your strawberry milkshake” he says to Derek, and Derek slides off the bench, standing up, so Stiles can get out.  “I’ll see you guys, probably tomorrow at the next crisis knowing us. Try not to get kicked out of the diner for public indecency.”

Scott smirks at Stiles, and opens his mouth, probably to say something mocking about him and Derek, judging by the way his eyes flick between them, and Stiles is getting out of there right now. He flips Scott off, and walks out the diner. Derek follows him, presumably because Derek doesn’t want to be present for what’s going on in there either.

“Don’t get me wrong, I love them all, but my friends are such dicks sometimes.” Stiles moans and Derek falls into step walking beside him, smirking.

“I think it’s pretty fitting, seeing as you’re kinda a dick too.” He points out, and Stiles can’t even get pissed or indignant at that, because Derek’s’ got a point. Stiles is a dick. That’s essentially the basis of about half his character.

“True.” He says, deciding against just arguing on principle. “Then again, fairly sure you are too. Maybe we all just attract each other. Dicks attracting other dicks. Gay euphemisms intended, though I’m not sure what that one could even mean. Interpret your own way.”

“You’re insane”

“Yup.” He says, turning the corner. He realises belatedly that Derek’s essentially just walked him back to his shop, and he blinks. “Uh- did you want to come in?”

“I should get going.” Derek says, and what was the point of walking with Stiles to his shop if he didn’t even want to go inside? Ugh, people he hasn’t known for years are confusing. He doesn’t like not being able to read people.

“Sure. See you round, you know where to come if the supernatural creatures kick your ass” he says; mock saluting and pushing open the door before Derek turns around and walks away.

………………

“Tell. Me. Everything.” Is what Lydia opens with, when she calls that evening. Stiles isn’t even surprised, he knew this was coming. “When did this happen. How did this happen. How did you even find time to fall for him?”

“I didn’t fall for him, okay; it’s just a dumbass crush.”

“Stiles.”

He sighs, and falls backwards onto the bed, holding the phone to his ear and trying to think of where to start. “Okay, so, at first he was just this really hot guy who came into the shop and tipped like eight dollars on an item bought from a fucking shop, who even does that?”

“Okay? And…” she prompts when he starts thinking and forgets to keep talking.

“Okay, so then, Allison shoots him, and he comes straight to me for help. Which I know is cause he obviously doesn’t actually have anyone to go to for help, I get that. But he was all worried when he could smell my blood left over from that ritual I told you I was gonna try. And then he showed up to find out how to talk to Scott and wore the fucking pendant I gave him even though I figured he’d just shove it somewhere.”

“So, he’s been around a lot, and you find him attractive.” Lydia says, understandably unimpressed by the lack of material to work with.

“I’d be fine if that was it, seriously. But then he carried me out bridal style when I got shot, remember. And I never mentioned, he showed up the day after for literally no other reason than to check up on me, and we had lunch together and he’s just so attractive Lyds.”

“You’re screwed.”

“Yes, you’ve already said that! What do I even do with this?”

“You should ask him out.”

Stiles blinks, then bursts out laughing, just a tad hysterically.

“No, seriously Lyds, is there some kind of spell for getting rid of crushes?”

“I am being serious Stiles, shut the hell up.” She sighs. “And I don’t know why you’re asking me, you’re the one with a magic shop.”

“You think I should ask him out.”

“Yes! He clearly gives a shit about you, and there’s serious sexual tension between you two.”

“I wasn’t just imagining it?” Stiles asks, slightly taken aback.

“You were definitely not imagining it. I have never been so glad that I don’t have super senses than when I was in that diner, between you two and the soul mate duo I would’ve choked on it.”

Stiles considers it for a moment, but when it comes down to it, Stiles just isn’t desirable. It all comes back to that, there’s no way actual perfection in human/werewolf form would ever want to go on any kind of date with Stiles. He’s just some dumbass who occasionally discovers plot developments in the story that is their lives.

“I’m not gonna ask him out Lyds, okay.” He says, defeated.

“Stiles-”

“No! It’s not happening! You owe me, I’m calling in one of the multitude of favours we owe each other to ask you to just drop this, okay.”

Lydia sighs, obviously frustrated, and Stiles has a very vivid image of her rolling her eyes at him, but he’s staying firm on this goddamnit. “I wish you’d realise people actually do want you.” She says, voice heavy, and Stiles doesn’t bother saying anything. She drops it though, and they move the conversation on.

Before she hangs up to go to bed, Lydia says, quietly and seriously for once, “I love you, y’know.”

“Yeah. I know. Love you too.” Stiles says, voice thick, but Lydia doesn’t comment on it and hangs up.

He goes to bed that night trying (unsuccessfully) not to think about Derek, and how he’d looked up close and relaxed in the diner, almost happy.

…………….

Beacon Hills is quiet for a week, nothing new and ugly rearing its head, no mysterious kidnappings, no suspicious deaths or attacks. It’s kinda weird, and definitely suspicious.

Derek keeps up the texts though, like clockwork at the same time every day, just to ask him how he is. Seriously, what’s with that, he only got his arm hurt. It’s practically healed by now anyway. Werewolves. He’ll never understand them.

He’s had a surprisingly good, day, is walking back from the hospital after having a final check-up (everything’s all fine, he can take the sling off, just avoid strenuous activity blah blah blah.), so of course, something happens. He is looking around, watchful for threats, because he’s been kidnapped way too many times whilst walking on his own, and he always gets jumpy when Beacon Hills is quiet for too long.

His phone buzzes in his pocket, so he pulls it out, and is surprised to see a text from Derek. It’s nowhere near Derek’s usual texting time; he’d already gotten his daily query on his health earlier that day, so it’s gotta be something important. He opens it, and blinks. And blinks again. The message is just a random jumble of letters, a few pages, and he scrolls down looking for some sense. He’s just reached the bottom when he feels a sharp stabbing in his neck, at the exact moment he reads the words ‘got you.’ Crap. This is bad. And also overdramatic, as always.

He reaches up and pulls out some kind of syringe from his neck, presumably shot from a tranq gun or something of that sort. The small container attached to the needle is empty, and he swears as his vision starts to blur. He just hopes it’s not poison. If he’s lucky, it’ll just be a tranq. Which leaves him with problems later, when he’ll no doubt wake up in some dingy cell, but at least he’ll be alive. There’s nothing he can do about it now though, his eyes are already slipping shut as he falls backwards and is caught by some guy whose face he can’t make out, blurred by the drug. His last thought before he loses consciousness is ‘I was gonna have game night with Scott.’ Because of course it is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well, that's 2 out of 3 out! I should have the third and final part up tomorrow, providing i don't spend all day in bed!  
> [Come cry with me over the rapidly approaching season 4](http://charimiel.tumblr.com)


	3. Part III

He wakes up in a dingy cell. Of course. After all, this is his life.

“If I’d died, my last thought would’ve been about game night.” He says. “That would’ve been a crappy last thought.”

“Good job you’re not dead then.” Says a voice from behind him, and he squeaks, scrambling around until he turns to face- oh. It’s just Derek.

“They got you too, huh? Should’ve seen that one coming, the text was from your cell.”

“What text?” Derek asks. He’s sitting with his back to the wall, bloodstains on his shirt. He looks exhausted.

“Just a bunch of letters, it was just to distract me so they could get me with tranq.” He says, waving his hand, then moving closer to Derek. “You okay man?”

“Just peachy, thanks.” He drawls, letting his head fall back against the wall, and Stiles sits next to him. “Just trying to heal several bullet wounds, nothing serious.”

“Can I see?” Stiles asks, worry creeping into his voice. He doesn’t bother hiding it. “No wolfsbane, right?” he adds, just to check. He’s fairly sure Derek would either be passed out or dead by this point if there was any in the bullets, but it’s best to check.

“Just usual bullets” Derek says, moving himself away from the wall carefully and turning to face Stiles, before gesturing to him. “I can’t move my arms enough to take my shirt off, but you can just lift it.”

Stiles shuffles around until he’s right by Derek’s side, and carefully pushes the shirt up. “As attractive as your chest is, I don’t appreciate seeing it when it’s covered in blood.”

“You’re the one so desperate to get my shirt off.” Derek points out, and Stiles shrugs, running his fingers gently over the healing wounds and frowning when nothing happens.

“It’s only been like two times.” He points out; trying to keep up the bravado, but Derek picks up on the tightness in his voice.

“What is it?” he asks, still fucking worried about Stiles when he’s bleeding out, Jesus, who does he think he is? He probably recues puppies at the weekends. Ugh.

“I think they’ve bound my magic or something.” Stiles says, because why bother keeping it from Derek. Secrets never helped him in the past, and they won’t now.

“That’s possible?” Derek says, and Stiles swallows. Takes a deep breath, before lifting his own shirt and looking down.

“Unfortunately.” He says, trying to keep his breathing deep and even when he sees the scar on his chest, an arrangement of circles and lines that Stiles recognises. “Shit, this is not good.”

“What’s that?” Derek asks, gaze fixed to Stiles chest, and in any other situation Stiles would probably blush, but god fucking damn, this is so not good.

“That is new. And a binding rune. And also a scar, meaning not only do they know how to bind magic; they have their own magician who was able to heal the cuts. Either that or I’ve been out for a lot longer than I thought I had. How long have you been here?” he asks, trying not to panic. Derek puts a hand on his arm, comforting.

“Less than an hour, stop panicking”

“That’s easier said than done!”

“Stiles, just breathe. You’re fine, we’ll get out of here, and then we can work out how to reverse whatever the hell they did.” Derek reassures, and Stiles pushes himself back to leaning against the wall. Derek follows, sitting close to him like they had in the diner last week, their shoulders and thighs pressed together.

When he’s calmed down, Stiles turns his head to look at Derek, who’s already staring at him.

“Thanks.” Stiles says, and Derek smiles. Well, his lip quirks in the way that’s totally a Derek Hale patented smile.

“You’re welcome.” Derek says, and Stiles has to tear his eyes away from Derek, his face so damned close, his stupidly perfect eyes fixed right on Stiles’s face.

“So, how’re we gonna get out of here?” Stiles asks, looking around the cell. It’s essentially just an empty box, no source of light other than a dusty light bulb hanging from the ceiling, not quite bright enough to really light up the room. There isn’t even a door visible, so either they’ve been bricked in, or it’s hidden from sight. He hopes it’s just hidden.

Derek doesn’t respond, presumably because he has absolutely no idea about how to get out either, so Stiles turns his gaze to Derek, staring at the side of his face.

They sit in silence for a few minutes, but it’s comforting to have Derek there with him.

“I remember you from before you left Beacon Hills.” Stiles admits, feeling the need to break the silence. He realised why Derek seemed familiar not long after he met him. “I didn’t recognise you at first when you came into the shop, but when I found out who you were I remembered.”

Derek’s starting right back at him, face more open than Stiles has ever seen it.

“You used to play basketball, right?” he asks, and Derek nods, his gaze not faltering from Stiles’s face. “I used to sit and watch some of your practices, when me and Scott were stuck at school. It must’ve been what, fifth grade? You were good. Looking back, that was probably the werewolf stuff right?”

“Yeah.” Derek says, staring at Stiles like he’s trying to understand him. Stiles is pretty easy to understand, he’s not sure why Derek looks so confused. “I don’t remember you.”

“Wasn’t expecting you to, I was just some little kid sitting by the field. Scott had a crush on your sister.”

“Cora?” Derek asks, quietly.

“Yeah. She punched him once when he wouldn’t stop staring. Scott’s always liked them fierce.” Stiles says, with a wry grin.

“I think she told me about him.” Derek says, even quieter than before, and Stiles has to strain to hear him. It’s weirdly intimate, which is probably Stiles’s fault. He probably shouldn’t’ve chosen such a personal topic.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable, or upset, or anything.” Stiles hurriedly says, because Derek looks sad. Then again, Derek pretty much always looks sad, like an underlying background of misery. Which is just fucking tragic. He has never hated Kate Argent so much in his life.

“It’s good. I don’t want to forget.” Derek says, and Stiles gets that. Sure, it’s painful to talk about people you’ve lost, but it can be strangely relieving.

They sit in silence again, and Stiles is definitely regretting talking at all, because the silence is heavy now- not quite oppressive, but definitely not comfortable like before.

“Why did you start a magic shop?” Derek asks, and apparently it’s honesty hour or something, personal question time. This probably means Stiles hasn’t fucked everything up at least, if Derek’s willing to engage in the conversation.

“It just sort of happened really. Everything went crazy in high school, and then it never stopped. I got into the magic thing to try and keep everyone safe, so I could be more use when shit went down y’know? I wasn’t doing much with a bat against various evil creatures.”

“So it was to keep people safe?”

“I guess.” Stiles waves his hands in a vague sort of gesture. “At first at least. But then I got into it, and I was actually good at it, and the shop just happened really.”

“It’s a good place.”

Stiles is kinda touched by that.

“Thanks.” He says, looking Derek right in the eye and grinning. “So, is this the moment we spill all our innermost feelings to each other?” he jokes. “You’re welcome to cry on my shoulder.”

“You’re such a dick.” Derek says, shaking his head, but he’s definitely amused. That’s definitely amusement on his face. It really is a good look.

They’re both looking right at each other, and there’s a brief moment when Stiles is about 80% sure Derek’s eyes flick down to his lips. He opens his mouth, with absolutely no idea what he’s going to say, but at that exact moment there’s a bang from the wall opposite them. They both break eye contact to stare at the source of the noise, and then there’s a section of wall suddenly not there. That’s definitely magic.

No one enters the room, but there’s a bag thrown into the room, followed by a full water bottle, and then the wall is back.

“They’ve definitely got a magician.” Stiles says, to fill the silence that follows the interruption to their little heart to heart.

“I’d never have guessed.” Derek says dryly, eyebrows raised. Stiles gets up, because he’s definitely in a better state to move, and walks over to the bag, carefully picking it up and opening it. Derek looks like he’s about to follow, so Stiles glares at him.

“You stay right there, you’re not healed yet.” He orders, heading back with the water and bag of what is apparently sandwiches. “It’s just food, see.”

“Oh.” Derek says, settling back comfortably against the wall when Stiles sits back in his original position next to him.

“Yeah. Which is good and bad I guess.”

Derek raises an eyebrow at him, because who needs words when you have such a wealth of eyebrow expressions. Stiles is rapidly learning Derek’s eyebrow language, and this particular one he recognises as the ‘what the fuck are you talking about look’. He’s seen it a lot on Derek’s face now.

“Well, if they’re feeding us, that means they need us alive, which is always good. But, it also means we might be in here for a while.”

Derek looks reluctantly impressed. “That makes sense.” He says, taking the bag from Stiles and pulling out one of the sandwich halves. He passes the rest back.

“You pick these things up after a while.” Stiles says, taking the other half out himself. It feels like he hasn’t eaten in days, but he forces himself to eat it slowly, well versed in the ways of making food last. “Especially when you’re the one who tends to get kidnapped.”

“Why do you get kidnapped so much?”

“People tend to think I’m just the useless human. I mean, out of a human, a werewolf, a banshee and a hunter, which would you take as a hostage?”

Derek doesn’t answer that question, but it was pretty rhetorical anyway. Stiles is well aware that people observing their group think he’s the weak link. He isn’t, not by any means- so maybe he gets hurt more often, and has more crises, but that’s not because he’s incapable. It’s usually because he doesn’t know when to stop. Anyway, appearing to be weak and helpless has definitely worked in his favour in the past. The element of surprise is never to be underestimated, much like Stiles himself really.

“What do they want with us?” Derek asks, because for some reason he thinks Stiles would know. Which is fair enough, Stiles does tend to be the one to figure this kind of stuff out, and he’s definitely the one with more knowledge of the whole kidnapping scene here.

“I don’t know, but it’s probably not good. It could be some kind of spell, in which case it’s likely to be carried out next full moon, considering there’s a werewolf component.”

“A spell?”

“Spark’s blood, an alpha werewolf- tell me that doesn’t sound like some kind of list of ingredients for a malevolent spell. Sparks blood is pretty important in a lot of stuff really, though I don’t know if it’d work with the dampening rune. It probably would- the rune just blocks the powers, it’s not like it takes them away, so I don’t see why it wouldn’t.”

“The next full moon’s a week away.” Derek points out, like Stiles doesn’t already know that. His best friend is a werewolf, knowing the lunar cycles has been a priority for him since high school. Stiles tends to know when full moons are going to be better than Scott does, and Scott’s the actual werewolf in their little ragtag pack. Stiles lets it go, because there’s no way for Derek to know that Stiles knows the dates of all the full moons for pretty much the next 5 years.

“Well, that hopefully gives us a week to get out of here. I’ve worked under tighter time pressure.” Stiles says optimistically. “Stay there, I’m gonna check the walls. How long ‘til you’re healed?”

“It’s pretty much healed now. A few more minutes I’d guess.”

“awesome.” Stiles says, pushing up from the floor and turning to face the wall, placing his hands on the brick. He has no idea what he’s looking for, but blindly hoping has worked for him in the past. If he’s lucky, it’ll work this time.

He makes his way around the cell, feeling the walls, looking closely at them. When he reaches the spot where the wall vanished, he spends more time looking and feeling around, hoping for some kind of indication of- he doesn’t know what of. He’s just looking for absolutely anything really.

He’s about to give up on that spot and carry on with the rest of the walls, when his finger brushes something that feels slightly warm to the touch, in the way that magic symbols often do after being activated. It’s around his waist level, so he crouches down to examine the spot. Now he knows where to look, he sees it, deliberate indents in the stone in a way that forms a small symbol, two circles and five lines, joining them and spiralling around. He doesn’t recognise it, but it’s a good place to start. He checks the bricks all around, spends more time checking for warmth, but doesn’t find anything else. He moves on, but doesn’t find anything else in the rest of the walls.

“You good?” Stiles asks, offering Derek a hand to get up, because it’s been about five minutes since Derek said he’d be healed in only a few minutes, so unless he was exaggerating as to how quickly he heals, he should be fine now.

Derek nods, and takes the offered hand, pulling himself up impressively gracefully for a guy who was bleeding from multiple holes in his chest only ten minutes ago. Derek’s hand is warm, and soft, which shouldn’t be surprising- after all, it’s not like werewolves can get callouses- but for some reason it’s not what Stiles was expecting. Derek maybe holds on to his hand for a little longer than necessary, but that might just be Stiles’s hopeful mind playing tricks on his, so he just lets his hand fall back to his side when Derek lets go, and doesn’t comment.

“I found a rune over by the door. Or what was the hole in the wall, so let’s call it a door.” He says, heading over to it with Derek on his heels. He crouches down again, points it out to Derek when he crouches next to him. “You recognise it?” Stiles asks hopefully, and Derek stares for a moment but shakes his head. Ah well, he’ll just have to figure it out.

They both stand up, and Derek walks around the cell, presumably checking for anything Stiles might’ve missed, but he doesn’t find anything. Of course he doesn’t, Stiles is a pro at finding things, especially in hostage situations. Derek’s not gonna find something Stiles can’t.

“Bet you regret coming back to Beacon Hills right about now.” Stiles says, rather pointlessly.

“Not really.” Derek surprises him by replying. They’re back to leaning against the wall, so Stiles turns his head to stare at Derek in disbelief, eyebrows raised in what he like to think is his ‘are you fucking kidding me’ face. His dad says it makes him look like an angry puppy, but what would he know. If anyone they know is a puppy, it’s definitely Scott anyway, and that’s not even just because of the werewolf thing. “It’s home.” Derek explains, but Stiles still thinks that’s a bit dumb.

“Literally nothing but shitty stuff has happened to you here. You haven’t lived here in like 15 years. Like, not to be offensive, but I’m fairly sure it doesn’t count as home anymore after that.” Stiles points out, because to be honest, no one deserves Beacon Hills as a home. He’s not entirely sure why anyone even lives here anymore, what with the regular murders, and wild animals roaming the woods etc.

“It’s territory.”

“Nope, totally not buying it. I know wolves are kinda territorial, but you guys can totally move. I know these things. I am knowledgeable in all things supernatural; I know there’s plenty of established packs that don’t even have territory.”

Derek sighs, and looks at him with exasperated eyebrows. Stiles mentally adds them to his fast growing mental catalogue of Derek expressions. He’s making good progress in learning ‘the eyebrow language of Derek Hale’.

“I still grew up here. It’s good to finally remember.”

Stiles has no idea how to respond to that, so he doesn’t say anything. He just nods, and looks away from Derek’s face.

Derek shifts beside him, and Stiles forces himself to not look, to not stare. He’s probably going to be stuck in here with Derek for the foreseeable future; it’ll be a lot easier if he doesn’t embarrass himself after only an hour or so.

He sits, and goes through all the runes he knows, mentally trying to compare them to the rune on the wall, because it’s the only clue they have right now. He must slip into his research headspace, because when he pays attention to his surroundings again he’s not sure how long has passed. His backside feels numb, so he’s been sitting on the ground for a while anyway.

He turns his head to look at Derek, and blinks. Nearly reaches a finger out to poke him, because Derek’s eyes are shut and his lips are slightly parted. Stiles doesn’t poke him though, because if Derek’s falling asleep here and now, in the dire situation they’re in, it probably means he desperately needs rest.

Stiles stares outright, now there’s no risk of Derek noticing and calling him out on it. The way his head is leant against the wall, turned in Stiles’s direction, can’t be comfortable, but he looks more relaxed than Stiles has seen him, except possibly when they’d been in the diner. He’s still ridiculously tense in a way that seems almost painful, but it’s a step in the right direction.

He sighs, and lets his gaze fall to Derek’s body, alternating between checking for any lasting damage and simply staring at the muscles. They’ve taken the pendant off of Derek, because if their magician is any good at all he’d have noticed the aura on it immediately. And clearly they’ve been unfortunate to end up with a bunch of (most likely) hunters who do have a competent magician, because the disappearing section of the wall’s gotta be some pretty heavy duty magic. Stiles doesn’t know what exact level of skill it’s requires, since he’s never actually had to make a wall disappear and reappear before, but he’s guessing it takes at least some know-how.

Stiles realises suddenly that he hasn’t even checked his own pockets yet. Apparently he forgets the basic rules of ‘what to do when you’ve been kidnapped 101’ when he actually has a cell mate. Ah well, better late than never.

He pushes his hands inside his trouser pockets, but there’s nothing in them. He sighs, but other than a pretty expensive packet of enchanted coins, there wasn’t anything helpful in there anyway. It’s not like he has an emergency kit in case of kidnapping. Or well, it’s not like he keeps it loose inside his pockets anyway.

He turns the lining out of the left pocket so it hangs out, and slips a finger into the crude stitching that keeps the two sides together. He pulls it with as much force as he can, and the lining tears open, revealing a hidden inner pocket that he’d sewn in all his pants after the 10th or so time being kidnapped. He’d realised that no matter how much he hated it, the whole getting kidnapped thing wasn’t gonna stop anytime soon, so he’d figured he might as well be prepared.

Derek makes a small snuffling noise, and his eyes flick open, so Stiles takes out the little bag and sets it beside himself to look at in a moment.

“Hey there.” Stiles says quietly, because Derek looks all kinds of adorable like this, waking up and confused.

“Did I fall asleep?” Derek asks, voice low, and Stiles swallows as Derek rubs at his face.

“Yup.” Stiles says, and Derek frowns.

“You should’ve woken me up.” He tells Stiles, already nearly back to normal, face closing off again.

“Wasn’t any point. Anyway, you definitely needed it if you can manage to fall asleep like that. When was the last time you even got a decent amount of sleep anyway?”

Derek looks pointedly away from Stiles, in clear avoidance, but Stiles has never been one to let things go.

“Derek, when did you last sleep?” he asks, in firmer voice, more like a demand, and Derek sighs.

“A while ago. I’m not sure.”

“Dude!” Stiles exclaims. “You need to sleep, and don’t bother going with the werewolf excuse” he says, when Derek opens his mouth to say what Stiles is 90% sure is going to be a bullshit werewolf excuse, because Stiles is getting to know Derek pretty well he thinks. “I remember what Scott was like finals week after he got turned, and he was just as dead as everyone else in the school.”

“It’s not like I’m doing it deliberately!” Derek snaps, and Stiles sighs.

“Well, you’re clearly capable of falling asleep if just now is any indication. So why can’t you normally.”

“It’s stupid.” Derek mutters, and Stiles is definitely curious now.

“Just tell me already.” He says, putting a hand on Derek’s shoulder after considering briefly how likely it is Derek will claw it off. Derek doesn’t pull away, or tear his arm in two, so he figures he hasn’t overstepped any boundaries like he’s briefly worried he might have.

“I just can’t get comfortable.”

“You didn’t looks very comfortable leaning against this wall” Stiles points out, and Derek scowls.

“I have to be able to sleep sometimes, or I’d be dead by now.”

“So you basically collapsed out of sheer exhaustion.” Stiles says, nodding. There’s a small part of himself that is disappointed by that explanation, because apparently it’s been hoping- what, that Derek had fallen asleep because he felt comfortable around Stiles? He internally slaps that part of himself, because this isn’t about him for god’s sake. “Why aren’t you comfortable? Is that a territory thing?”

“Not really” Derek says, with a strange mix of wry amusement and discomfort on his face. Stiles stares at him for a while, trying to make sense of that, but no, he’s not getting anywhere. Looks like he’ll just have to ask. He has a horrible feeling he might know why Derek isn’t comfortable where he sleeps. He really hopes he isn’t right.

“Where are you sleeping?” he asks, softly, but Derek doesn’t reply, just moves his gaze to stare at the wall opposite them on the other side of the cell. “Derek?” Still no reply. That’s pretty much a confirmation, yeah. “You’re staying at your old house aren’t you.” He says, not even bothering to phrase it as a question, because he’s pretty sure he won’t get an answer. He doesn’t, but the way Derek tenses up even further is a pretty big clue that he’s right. “Jesus.”

Stiles isn’t really sure what to say, but his hand is still resting on Derek’s shoulder so he squeezes, a gentle pressure which he intends to be comforting.

“When we get out of here, you’re staying somewhere that isn’t falling down and condemned.” Stiles states, not even bothering to give Derek a chance to object. Clearly Derek has no idea what’s best for himself, so Stiles will just have to look after him or something. “You can stay with one of us if you don’t wanna find a motel or something.”

Derek’s back to staring at him again, so Stiles clears his throat, takes his hand off Derek’s shoulder, and grabs the bag from where he’d set it down. He knows what’s inside it, a small collection of herbs, a tiny blade, and a sprig of wolfsbane, but he pulls them out and sets them down on the ground anyway to puzzle over.

“Where did you get those?” Derek asks.

“Stitched in my trouser pocket.” Stiles says, frowning. He picks up the little blade, puts the herbs and wolfsbane back in the bag, and puts them both back in his other trouser pocket. “Right, how are we getting out of here?” Stiles says, and when Derek shrugs he decides to list his ideas so far.

“Okay, so plan A, I’m thinking next time they deliver food you claw the shit out of that guys arm and I sneak out.”

“Won’t work.” Derek says, and Stiles glares.

“Such overwhelming optimism, I’m so glad I have you here.” Stiles says, and Derek pokes him hard in the knee, presumably in retaliation to the sarcasm. “Why not?”

“I can’t transform.” Derek says, matter-of-factly, and Stiles stares at him.

“Why not!” Stiles exclaims, when Derek doesn’t expand on that statement.

“There’s something in the walls.”

Stiles frowns, then realises. “Hecatolite, definitely. You can’t feel the moon, can you?”

“No.” Derek tersely responds, and Stiles refrains from punching him, but only just.

“You couldn’t have mentioned this a bit sooner?” he fumes, and Derek looks apologetic at that.

“I…” he trails off, undoubtedly not able to come up with an explanation as to why he’d not said anything, but Stiles figures he can let him off this once. Stiles had only just remembered about the bag of herbs in his pocket, so they’re both idiots really.

“Yeah, you’re forgiven just this once. There’s nothing else your wolfiness is telling you about this place that you’ve failed to tell me about is there? No weird smells?”

“It smells like shit.” Derek points out, and fair point. The cell really does smell awful, even to Stiles’s puny human senses.

“Point. Anyway, that’s plan A and B out the metaphorical window.”

“Plan B?”

“Yeah, I figured you could claw out the binding symbol or whatever they cut into me.” Stiles says, offhandedly, pulling the blade out again and flipping it over in his palm, considering it. He nearly drops it when Derek growls in a way that’s definitely involuntary, but’s just as terrifying. His hand clenches automatically, and the blade cuts into his palm slightly, making it sting and bleed slightly.

Derek’s taking the blade away almost instantly, pulling on Stiles’s arm so his hand is right in front of Derek. “Hey!” Stiles exclaims, but Derek ignores him, frowning. “It’s just a scratch, it’s fine.” Stiles points out, but Derek inspects his hand for a moment longer. When he’s deemed that Stiles is apparently telling the truth he lets Stiles’s hand go.

“Why does anyone ever trust you with sharp objects?” He asks, in an exasperated and borderline fond tone. Stiles wasn’t aware they’d known each other long enough for Derek to be sounding fond. Either he’s misinterpreting that tone of voice, or he might actually be getting somewhere in the ‘bond with Derek Hale’ mission. It’s probably the former.

“I’m fine with sharp stuff thank you.” Stiles complains, pouting exaggeratedly. “You startled me.”

“You told me your plan was to have me cut up your chest with my claws.” Derek points out, all potential fondness gone from his voice.

“It probably would’ve worked!” Stiles defends, and Derek rolls his eyes.

“That’s not the point Stiles. I don’t actually like clawing up my friends.”

“We’re friends?”

Derek’s looking uncomfortable now, and he opens his mouth. The slight panic in his eyes, not quite hidden, tells Stiles that he’s probably going to deny it, so Stiles cuts him off before he can even say a word.

“Nope, no take backs, we’re totally friends now. You’re stuck with me forever.”

Derek rolls his eyes again, a shockingly attractive motion, and Stiles takes a brief moment to thank whichever deity Derek is clearly blessed by. That level of attractive is definitely supernatural.

“I don’t want to stay here and find out what they want to do with us.” Stiles says, immediately making the mood tense and strained again, but they have to stay on target if they want to get out of here. “I can take a bit of pain if it means escape. If I had my powers back I could easily get us both out of here.” Stiles points out.

“I can’t transform, remember. Even if I did think it was a good idea, I couldn’t.”

“You can use the blade.” Stiles says, nodding to where it sits next to Derek, on the floor where Derek had set it down.

The mood is suddenly a hell of a lot tenser. “Stiles-” Derek says, but Stiles cuts him off.

“I’ll be fine, I’ve had worse.  Derek, this is the only plan we’re gonna come up with. I’m useless without my magic, and you’re pretty much helpless in here too. It’s not like we can cut the hecatolite out of the walls.”

Derek still looks unsure, so Stiles goes for the killer blow to Derek’s defence against his plan.

“If you don’t do it, I’ll just do it myself. It’ll be more dangerous though, I won’t exactly be able to concentrate.”

Derek glares at him, but picks up the blade.

“I don’t like this plan.”

“I noticed. I don’t exactly like it either dude, but it’s better than just waiting in here.”

“Your friends might come for you.”

“They might come for us.” Stiles corrects. “I don’t exactly want to wait like a damsel in distress. I’m gonna have to have it cut off eventually anyway. Even if we get out of here without it, I’ll need my magic back. How else can I run a magic shop?”

“I don’t want to hurt you.” Derek admits, and Stiles pokes him, right between the eyebrows where he has frown lines.

“I know that, dumbass. Just get on with it.”

Derek goes cross-eyed when Stiles pulls his finger back, as he stares at it, incredulous. “Did you just poke me.”

“Yup. And remember, questions need question marks, I thought we established this already.” Stiles says, desperately trying to lighten the atmosphere. He fails dismally. Ugh, this is going to suck majorly. He pulls his shirt off quickly, moving to sit in front of Derek. Under any other circumstances Stiles would definitely be extremely pleased by this turn of events. As it is, he’s a little too stressed about the prospect of the coming pain to think about the fact that he’s shirtless and sitting in front of the hottest guy on the planet. Which is helpful in that it at least means he doesn’t have an embarrassing problem to try and hide. As it is, he only blushes a little.

Derek stares at the mark for a moment, reaching up with a hand to trace it, and Stiles shivers. “Do it.” he whispers. He’s right in Derek’s space, practically breathing the same air, and it feels appropriate to whisper.

Derek doesn’t hesitate any longer after Stiles speaks; he takes the blade and carefully cuts. Stiles doesn’t look down, doesn’t feel any urge to. Instead, he stares at Derek’s face to distract himself from the pain. Derek’s eyebrows are furrowed in concentration, and his mouth is slightly parted again. It puts his bunny teeth right in view, and that’s just unfairly adorable.

Stiles stops himself staring at Derek’s mouth any longer, because down that road lies madness and embarrassment. Instead, he looks at Derek’s eyes. They’re focused downwards, clearly on Stiles’s chest, and Stiles can look into them without feeling embarrassed like he has done before today. They’re so many different colours, Stiles kinda wants to cry. How can this guy be real? He’s already sarcastic, sweet, and ridiculously attractive, did he have to have perfect eyes too?

He feels the exact moment when the rune is cut enough to no longer be effective, his magic sparking as it tries to complete the tasks he’d set it to do without realising it was bound. He settles it down, and breathes deep, before taking a look down.

His chest isn’t as bad as he’d feared from how painful it’d been, there’s a patch on his chest which is bleeding but not too badly, and Stiles pointedly doesn’t look at the small section of skin Derek throws in the corner. Derek takes Stiles’s shirt, and tears a long strip off of it, in a spiral up the shirt so it’s long enough to wrap around his chest a few times. He tears off one of the sleeves, presses it in place over stile’s wound, causing him to wince in pain, and then wraps the strip around a few times to hold it in place, securing it with a knot at Stiles’s back. He’s gentle with the makeshift bandages, and he rests a hand on Stiles’s bare shoulder for a moment, before he stands, helping Stiles up.

“You good?” he asks, and Stiles nods, not wanting to break the quiet intimacy. Unfortunately, this isn’t really the time or place for staring longingly, which is probably a good thing, since it saves Stiles some embarrassment when he breaks Derek’s gaze and moves out of his personal space to head over to the rune carved in the wall.

“Ready?” Stiles asks, and Derek stands in front of where the hole in the wall had appeared, and nods.

“Ready.”

Stiles concentrates, and channels a spark of energy into the rune, deliberately giving it no intention so it will complete whatever task the rune instructs. Hopefully the rune actually does correspond to the door, else they’ve got a whole new problem on their hands, but judging by the position it should hopefully open the door for them.

He holds his breath for a moment, but then there’s the bang Stiles recognises from earlier, and the section of the wall is gone. Stiles grins, and Derek steps out of the cell, Stiles on his heels. Apparently the hecatolite was just in the stones of the cell, because Derek shifts the moment he crosses the doorway, teeth and claws lengthening and eyebrows disappearing to who knows where.

There’s a guard outside, but before he can open his mouth to shout for help, Stiles sends him to sleep with a quick spell. Maybe these guys just got lucky kidnapping them, if their men aren’t even protected from basic magic.

Derek makes his way through the corridor they’ve ended up in, and Stiles walks behind him, alert for any guards and dropping any men he sees on the spot.

They reach a door, and Derek reaches out to open it. It isn’t even locked. That’s just shoddy, these guys must have put all their kidnapping skills and security into the cell Stiles and Derek had been kept in, because the security in the rest of this place is utter crap. It opens straight to the outside world, and the sun never seems quite as amazing as it does after escaping kidnappers.

“Stop right there!” Stiles hears a timid voice coming from behind him, and when he turns around there’s a small guy behind them, definitely younger than Stiles, holding what Stiles recognises as a visually impressive but completely harmless fireball. He looks terrified, but isn’t letting that stop him, which gives Stiles a mild respect for him at least. “I don’t want to hurt you, but I will.” He says, and Stiles rolls his eyes.

Derek moves like he’s going to attack, and Stiles grabs his arm, stops him from moving forward.

“Why don’t you put that out?” Stiles says, nodding at the fire. “We both know it’s harmless.”

The guy blinks, but puts the fire out. Sensible idea really, no use wasting energy on an intimidation tactic if both parties know it’s harmless.

“I’m Stiles, this is Derek. We just want to go home, okay. I really don’t want to hurt you, or let Derek hurt you, so why don’t you just let us go.”

“I can’t do that.” The magician says, voice shaking. “They’ll kill me.”

Okay, so this guy’s as much of a victim as they are here.

“Who are they?” The guy, who looks more and more like an out of depth kid every minute that passes, shakes his head repeatedly, so Stiles takes a different approach. “What’s your name?”

“Stiles, let’s go.” Derek growls from next to him, tugging his arm out of Stiles’s restraining grasp and moving towards the door.

“Stop!”

Stiles sighs. They’re not getting anywhere here, but he can’t just leave this kid to the mercy of whoever masterminded this whole thing. He’s too much like Stiles, right down to the dumbass posturing. He’s just younger and less experienced.

“Sorry kid.” He says, then sends him to sleep before he even sees it coming. “Can you grab him?” he asks Derek, and Derek shoots him a magnificent example of a bitchface, but strides over to the sleeping kid and picks him up like he weighs nothing, yay for werewolf strength, lucky bastards.

“Let’s go.” He grows, striding past Stiles to the door again, and Stiles has to jog to catch up.

“Where are you even heading?” Stiles asks after about ten minutes of walking, in the woods that had been surrounding wherever they were being kept.

“Home.”

“Yeah, but, how do you know where it is?”

Derek doesn’t answer, which Stiles takes to mean as ‘I have no idea where I’m going so I’m not going to say anything and just walk and hope for the best.’

“You’re useless.” Stiles bemoans, and stops walking. Derek spins around to face him, face back to normal.

“What do you suggest then?” Derek retorts, and Stiles beckons him over.

“Put him down.” Stiles says, and Derek frowns, but does it anyway. Stiles kneels next to him and rifles through his pockets, and sure enough, there’s a cell in there. There’s also Derek’s pendant, and Stiles’s enchanted coins, so he hands the pendant back to Derek and pockets the coins. “Literally everyone carries a cell these days; it’s the easiest way to call for help.”

Derek pulls the pendant back on straight away, and Stiles resolutely doesn’t feel a surge of warmth inside as Derek puts on the thing Stiles made for him. That would just be dumb. Derek looks sheepish.

“Sorry. Wasn’t really thinking.”

“Dude, it’s fine. You’re new to the crazy that goes on here, whereas I most definitely am not. Kidnapping is my thing. Or, not kidnapping, but escaping from being kidnapped. I don’t kidnap people.” Derek’s eyes fall on the body on the ground between them, and he raises an eyebrow. “Okay, so yes, I kidnapped him, but I don’t regularly kidnap people or anything. He needed the help, c’mon. It was practically a rescue. Ugh, shut up with the eyebrows, I’m calling Scott.” Stiles turns away so Derek can’t see his embarrassment, and types the number.

“Yo Scotty!” he says, when Scott picks up.

“Stiles? Where are you man! You didn’t get kidnapped again did you?”

“Maybe?”

“Stiles!”

“S’not my fault I got kidnapped Scott, that’s victim blaming.” He hears Derek snort behind him, and he whirls around to glare at him. “Anyway, Derek got kidnapped too.”

“Yeah yeah, I’m tracing the cell, I know the drill. We’ll be there in… probably about 20, you’re somewhere in the woods to the east of town.”

Stiles looks up at the sky, does a quick bit of thinking, then hangs up with a quick, “Thanks dude, see ya soon.” He pockets the phone himself, because they can’t leave it with their sort of hostage anyway, he might as well keep it. “So, Beacon Hills is totally in the opposite direction.” Stiles points out, but judging by the way Derek’s already avoiding his eyes and scowling before Stiles even says it, he probably figured that out already. “Well, I say you treat this as a lesson.”

“In what? Don’t get kidnapped? Don’t think you’re the right person to teach me that.”

“Oh shut up, I got us out didn’t I?”

“I distinctly remember having some part in it.” Derek says, unimpressed, and Stiles grins.

“Yeah, I know. Thanks man. I’m just teasing, you did great.”

Derek looks even more unimpressed, which Stiles wouldn’t even have thought was possible, but apparently it is.

Stiles sits down on the ground, cross legged, and pats the ground next to him. “Might as well get comfortable, Scott’s coming to pick us up so there’s no need to go anywhere.”

Derek sits, but looks back into the forest from the direction they came. “What if they come after us?”

“They can’t. I got rid of the tracks.” Stiles says, pulling one of his coins out and flipping it for something to do with his hands.

“I didn’t see you doing that.”

“You were busy striding angrily through the woods, I’m sure your attention was focused in other places.”

“Fuck off.”

Stiles gasps, putting a hand to his chest in deliberate drama.

“Such language! You’d think you’d been raised by wolves!”

Derek glares. “I have heard that joke far too many times, and it will never be funny.”

“You don’t know shit about humour then dude.” Stiles says, flicking the coin at Derek so he has to catch it before it hits him on the nose. It’s a shame he’s got such good reflexes, it would’ve been hilarious if he hadn’t caught it.

“What is this?” Derek says, turning it over in his hand.

“Oh I’m sorry, I forgot, wolves don’t have a currency system do they. This, my friend, is a coin.” He says, deliberately exaggerating the last word like he’s talking to a child, and Derek throws it back. Stiles, unfortunately, doesn’t have werewolf reflexes. The coin hits him right on the nose.  “Hey!”

“Don’t be a dick.” Derek’s scowling again, but it’s different from his murderous scowl, slightly softer around the edges somehow. It seems more playful than violent, so Stiles is pretty sure he’s safe from violent mauling or anything like that.

“But, that’s like, my whole personality! C’mon, what did you think I was gonna say. You totally left yourself open for that.”

“Stiles.”

“It’s just an enchanted coin; I’ve got a whole bag of them. Basic magic staple and all that.” Stiles explains, picking the coin off the ground and flipping it again. Derek’s eyes follow the coin, and when Stiles catches it back in his hand he fakes throwing it into the woods.

“Fetch!”

Derek growls. It’s not exactly a surprise. Scott never liked the dog jokes either, so it’s probably a werewolf thing.

“Shut up.” He growls at Stiles, and let it never be said that Stiles doesn’t know when to stop pushing. Derek probably won’t kill him, but even so.

Derek’s eyes snap to the woods to the left of Stiles, and Stiles tenses, anticipating some kind of attack, but Derek looks over at him and reassures “It’s Scott.”

“Oh thank god, I really need to get home and crash.”

“Shouldn’t you go to the hospital?” Derek points out, eyes flicking down to the improvised bandages that cover his chest.

“What, for this? They’d just laugh at me man, s’not really a hospital worthy wound.”

Derek doesn’t look convinced, but he was born a werewolf so would probably suggest Stiles went to the hospital for a papercut. Advanced healing makes werewolves strangely overprotective of humans. Stiles is well acquainted with that fact, he and Allison have bonded many a time over Scott’s overprotectiveness.

“Stiles? Derek?” Scott’s voice comes from the woods, and Stiles responds,

“Over here”. Scott emerges from the woods, clutching his phone. His eyebrows shoot up when he sees the prone form between them.

“Please tell me you don’t need me to hide a body.” He says, frowning at Stiles and shooting Derek a suspicious look.

“No! He’s just asleep, jeez. And, before you say anything, yes we kidnapped him a little bit. But I still say it was a rescue, they were gonna kill him!”

“Do you even know who he is?” Scott asks, exasperated.

“No. but he can do magic. Also can we go home now? I need my first aid kit before sourwolf over there drags me to the hospital for a scratch.”

“You okay Derek?” Scott asks, shifting his focus off Stiles to look worriedly at Derek.

“Fine.” He says, glaring at Stiles. Stiles can tell what Derek is saying with those angry eyebrows, some variant of ‘I had to cut your flesh out and if I say you need medical care you should fucking listen to me and also never call me that’. He’s practically fluent in eyebrow already; it’s a very steep learning curve.

Stiles flicks the coin at Derek as one last retaliation, before standing and putting out a hand to help Derek up.

“Can we do the whole debriefing thing tomorrow?” he pleads, as Scott picks up the sleeping magician. “He’ll be fine just sleeping, and I really need to crash. Like, desperately need to.”

Scott looks worried, but nods.

“Sure. You gonna be okay?”

“Yeah, just get us home.”

Scott leads the way back out of the woods to a road where Allison’s car sits.

“I thought Allison and Lydia were having a day off?”

“They are, I borrowed Ally’s car. Figured the two of you wouldn’t want to squeeze onto the back of my bike.” Scott points out, and, yeah, Stiles should’ve figured that one out on his own. Whatever, he’s just been kidnapped; he’s allowed to not be 100% functioning normally.

The car ride back is surprisingly not awkward, Scott putting the limp magician in the front passenger seat when Stiles slips into the back with Derek. Derek looks surprised, raises an eyebrow, but doesn’t ask. It’s probably only not awkward because Stiles is practically falling asleep on the window, the adrenaline wearing off now he’s back in relative safety. In a car with two friendly werewolves is pretty much as safe as it gets in Beacon Hills, he can let his guard down.

When Scott pulls up outside of Stiles’s shop, Derek has to physically shake Stiles to get him to return to consciousness, his hand resting on Stiles’s bare shoulder. Stiles takes a moment to get his bearings back, then reaches over to flick Derek on the forehead on a whim. He’s immediately glad he followed through on the urge, Derek looks startled and offended and Stiles laughs.

“Dude, get out my car already.” Scott says, rolling his eyes at Stiles’s antics. Stiles opens the door, then pauses.

“You coming?” he says to Derek, and silence hangs between them for a moment. Scott is pointedly not staring at him, and Stiles appreciates the consideration, but the sudden interest in the dials on the dashboard is even less subtle than staring would’ve been. Bless him, he’ll never be subtle. It’s almost endearing. Almost.

“Are you sure?” Derek asks, and Stiles rolls his eyes. At this rate, soon they’ll all be communicating in only eye rolls. The sarcastic man’s paradise, Stiles can’t wait. Though he does like to talk, so maybe not.

“Yes, I’m sure. I was sure earlier, and unless you’ve suddenly found a place to sleep that isn’t condemned whilst sitting in a car with us, you’re staying with me. I will drag you out of this car if you stand between me and my bed for any longer by just sitting there.” He threatens when Derek doesn’t move, just stares at him.

Scott’s got his horrified look on, which means he’s either figured out where Derek’s been sleeping, or he thinks Stiles is asking Derek in for sex or something. For Scott’s sake, Stiles hopes it’s the former. He has enough experience with knowing far too much about his friend’s sex life to ever wish that upon another person, even if said person is the one who told Stiles in great detail about his sex life. Stiles knows far too much about Allison. They’ve sworn to never tell her about the period in Scott’s life when he firmly believed in ‘sharing is caring’. Allison has a crossbow, and Stiles doesn’t like getting shot. He knows this from experience.

And he’s getting off track again in his own brain. Fantastic.

Derek pauses, then unfastens his seat belt and opens his own door. Stiles waves goodbye to Scott when he drives off, leaving him and Derek standing in front of his shop.

Stiles unlocks the door, and heads inside, gesturing for Derek to follow. “I can lend you something to sleep in, you’ll never get comfortable sleeping in jeans.” Stiles says, immediately heading to the back room where he keeps the first aid kit. “Let me just bandage this up first.”

Derek looks uncertain, but nods. “Thanks.”

“No problem.” Stiles peels off the ripped up t-shirt bandages and winces at the wound. Hopefully it won’t scar, but it’s gonna look pretty ugly for a while. He throws away the shredded shirt, trying not to acknowledge the fact that it’s soaked through with a hell of a lot of his blood, and grabs what he needs to clean and bandage himself up.

He’s done within minutes, used to having to patch himself and other people up. Even before the whole supernatural shit storm took over his life, he used to get pretty banged up. Him and Scott were never the best at staying safe, and being sensible. The recklessness is not a new trait.

“You can sleep in the spare room. Sorry if it’s a bit dusty, no one’s ever actually slept in there. I think the beds made though. I’ll grab you something to wear.” He says, putting away the first aid kit and heading up the stairs. Derek follows close behind him, and Stiles resists the dog jokes that just leap to his tongue, because Derek looks uncertain and just vulnerable enough that Stiles really just wants to pull the guy into a hug. That’d be embarrassing for them both, so he deliberately avoids looking directly at Derek.

“It’s fine” Derek reassures, as Stiles digs out some old sweats and a t-shirt. He hands them to Derek who takes them with a smile. He still looks soft around the edges, but some of the vulnerability is gone, so Stiles feels safe enough looking at him without running risk of any impromptu hugs.

Stiles points out the spare room to Derek, then leaves him to change and sleep as he heads to his own room. When he’s changed and has slipped under his own covers, he pointedly does not think about the fact that the guy he’s majorly crushing on is only in the room next door to him. He’s almost thankful for the adrenaline crash, because otherwise he’s not sure how he would’ve gotten to sleep.

………..

It’s not so much he forgets that Derek’s staying with him, as pointedly avoids thinking about it the next morning. However, maybe he should’ve given it some thought, because then he might have been slightly more prepared for the sight of Derek Hale in his kitchen, wearing his sweats and t-shirt, making what looks like pancakes. Stiles stands staring for longer than he’d ever admit, though Derek has to know he’s there. It should not be fair for anyone to look that attractive in sweatpants. He’s avoiding thinking about the connotations of Derek wearing Stiles’ sweatpants, because down that road lies embarrassment and awkward boners, and almost definitely insanity,

When he pulls himself together enough to stop staring and walk over to his table, he sees there’s a mug of coffee sat in front of one of the chairs, and he’s back to staring again.

He manages to sit down eventually, flushing with embarrassment. “Thanks.” He says, drawing the coffee towards himself and taking a sip.

“The least I could do.” Derek says, putting the pancakes on plates and sitting down opposite Stiles, sliding one of the plates across to him.

Stiles takes a sip of his coffee to occupy his mouth, so he doesn’t blurt out something embarrassing like ‘I want you to stay forever’.

When he sets it down, he runs his fingers through his hair subconsciously, and internally sobs when he realises he has bed-hair. There goes his dignity.

The silence is awkward, so Stiles grabs a fork and starts on his pancakes. He has to resist moaning at the amazing taste. For fucks sake, Derek couldn’t just be a superhot kind sarcastic werewolf, he had to be a good cook too? In what world was that fair?

Derek’s looking uncertain again, and Stiles realises the expression he has on his face as he curses Derek’s perfection might not be complimentary. He rushes to correct his mistake, but it’s early in the morning, so the words sort of tumble out.

“These are so amazing, seriously, you’re like the perfect person, can I just keep you forever?”

The moment the words are out he slaps his hand over his mouth. He’s pretty sure he’s a very unattractive shade of red right now, but he’s almost too mortified to even care. Derek stares, and then his mouth curves into a small smile, and Stiles is so done. He lets his head fall to the table (carefully avoiding the pancakes, because they seriously are orgasmic) and wraps his arms around it, blocking out his view of the world.

“Stiles?”

“Nope, leave me here. Stiles isn’t home, I’m on an extended holiday until my brain shuts the fuck up”

“Stiles.” Derek sighs, and Stiles just wraps the arms tighter around his head. He feels Derek’s hands close around his wrists, and resists Derek pulling his arms away from his face. Unfortunately, he still isn’t a match for werewolf strength, so his little cocoon of embarrassment was doomed from the moment Derek decided to pull him out.

“Stiles, will you just look at me.” Derek pleads, and Stiles whimpers.

“Leave me here to choke on my embarrassment and die.” He mutters, keeping his head face down on the table and his eyes firmly shut.

“I don’t mind if you keep me forever.” Derek says quietly, and Stiles’s head flies up so fast he’s in legitimate danger of whiplash.

Derek doesn’t look away, and Stiles has to blink a few times to check he’s not in some kind of extended hallucination. He pinches himself on the arm to be sure. Nope, definitely real.

“What?” he asks, staring right into Derek’s (blindingly perfect, for fucks sake) eyes.

Derek honest to god blushes, colouring underneath his scruff, and opens his mouth, but right when he’s about to speak (and holy god Stiles might just be about to receive the best news of his life) there’s the sound of the front door slamming open and Scott’s frantic yelling.

“Stiles?”

Stiles looks desperately at Derek, and bites his lip. “Can you just… hold that thought?” he asks, and Derek’s lip quirks up in his version of a smile as he nods.

“What is it?” Stiles says, heading out into the front to find a panicked Scott. “What happened?”

Scott blinks, then relaxes.

“You’re okay.”

“Yeah? Why wouldn’t I be?” Stiles points out, frowning.

“I’ve called you like five times! Pack meeting was meant to be half an hour ago!”

“Wait, pack meeting? No one said anything about pack meeting!” Stiles exclaims, and Scott frowns.

“I texted you dude, like always”

Derek comes out of the back to stand next to Stiles, leaning against the counter and watching the two of them.

“They took our phones when they kidnapped us.” Derek points out, and Stiles points at him in a clear ‘what he said’ gesture.

“Oh.”

“C’mon, we’ll go now.” Stiles says, pulling on a pair of shoes he has tucked under the counter. Derek disappears into the back, and reappears with his own shoes, and Scott stares at them both for a moment.

“I’ll text Ally to tell her you’re okay, we were freaking out, we thought you’d been kidnapped again man.”

They head outside, and Derek and Stiles end up in Stiles’s jeep, since Scott came on his motorbike. The ride is awkward, Stiles keeps glancing over to Derek to find him staring, and then they both look away in embarrassment. Seriously, they’re meant to be adults, they need to get their shit together and stop acting like teenagers with crushes. Stiles is about 90% sure Derek likes him back (oh god, he’s definitely regressing to high school), so he needs to just go for it. It’s not like Derek will. He resolves that after this fiasco is dealt with, he’ll ask Derek out on a date. He will officially make his intentions clear, because he’s so done with pining.

With that decision made in his head, the drive seems easier, less tense, and when they get out at Scott’s he grins at Derek.

Scott lets them in, and they all traipse into the front room to be met with two of the most unimpressed glares Stiles has seen in a very long time. He recoils instinctively, because when Lydia and Allison are both pissed, then someone’s in serious danger, and in this case it might just be him.

“You didn’t think to mention they had your phone?” Lydia hisses. So that’s what the glaring’s for. He avoids her eyes, not responding since there’s not really anything he can say that won’t piss her off even more. He notices the magician, slumped in a chair across the room, still out cold. Apparently his magic’s still working fine, which is always a relief to know.

“Okay, so, how about we focus on the problem at hand, and you can shout at Stiles later.” Scott appeases, and Lydia glares at him for a moment before sighing haughtily.

“Fine.” She concedes. “You should probably wake him up now.” She gestures to the sleeping guy.

He lifts the spell, because Lyds is right, and he wakes up instantly, gasping and looking around frantically.

“What… who… where am I?” he gasps.

“You’re safe, unless you’re planning on hurting any of us.” Scott says, in his most threatening voice. He should really leave the threatening to Allison and Lydia, he’s really too much of a puppy for it to work at all. It works though, probably because this guy looks like he’d be terrified of a five year old.

His gaze lands upon Stiles and Derek, and he turns white.

“I’m so sorry, I didn’t want to do that stuff to you, they made me” he says, and Stiles lets him squirm for a minute, because cutting that mark off had really hurt, but then he puts him out of his misery.

“Dude, it’s fine, I figured that out already. Think you can tell me your name this time?”

“It’s Ben.”

“Hey Ben” Scott says, taking lead of the conversation. “I’m Scott, and this is Lydia and Allison” he says, pointing to the girls in turn. “And you’ve obviously met Stiles and Derek. Is there anything you can tell us about the people who had you?”

“They’re hunters. Nasty ones. They call themselves the Bane clan, but I think that’s just overdramatics.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard of them. I’ll get dad to sort it out, the Argents still have jurisdiction here.” Allison says, relaxing.

“It didn’t seem like they cared that much.” Ben says tentatively, and she waves her hand at him.

“I’m sure the group that are here don’t care, but they will when they’re called back by their leader. They’re based in LA, well established, follow the code. These are probably breakaways, trying to prove themselves.” She says, standing up and pulling out her car keys. “I’m headed home then, I’ll get this sorted.” She says, giving Scott a quick kiss goodbye. He stares after her for a few minutes dreamily when she leaves, and Stiles eventually clears his throat to snap him out of it.

“She’s so awesome.” He sighs, and Stiles has to stop himself bursting into laughter.

“Yeah man, she is. Always helps to have the hunters on your side. Well, if everything’s all sorted here, I think I’ll head out.” Stiles says, standing up and glancing at Derek to see if he’s coming as well. He’s halfway to the door when Lydia clears her throat and he freezes.

“If you ever scare us like that again, I will kill you myself. Good luck.” She says, with a meaningful glance at Derek, and he glares at her.

“Fine.” He agrees, and gets out before she decides embarrass him any more as some kind of payback.

They head out to Stiles’s jeep, and Derek gets in when Stiles just stares at him and refuses to drive off without him. Stiles glances over at Derek, and screws up his courage. Time to make good on his inner resolution.

“Milkshakes?” he asks, and Derek stares at him, but nods anyway.

He drives them to the diner but Derek puts a hand on his arm before he can get out.

“Stiles?”

“Yeah?” he says, letting his eyes flick down to Derek’s lips since resisting is pretty much a lost cause at this point.

“Can this be a date?” he says, and Stiles stares for a moment, before bursting out laughing.

Derek looks a little hurt, but hides it with a frown and pulls his arm back; making to get out of the car, but Stiles grabs his arm before he can leave the jeep.

“No, no, don’t go, I’m sorry, I just” he says, breathing deep and pushing back the laughter. “Dude, I was working my way up to asking you that, and then you just said it and I’m just nervous, I’m not laughing at you, I swear.”

Derek glances down at the hand Stiles has clutched around his arm, and smiles softly. Stiles blushes, and lets go.

“Christ, why is this so hard, we’ve already established we want to date!” Stiles says, after they sit in the jeep in awkward silence for a minute. Derek chuckles.

“Maybe we should actually go into the diner?” he says, and Stiles’s grin is wide enough it rivals Scott’s when Allison had agreed to move in with him.

They get out of the car, and Stiles grabs Derek’s hand before they walk in.

“This okay?” he says, looking nervously at Derek, and Derek just leans in to press a quick kiss to his lips, before pulling away. Stiles stares, speechless, and lifts his free hand to touch his lips where Derek’s were just moments before.

“Definitely.” Derek says, and Stiles can’t stop himself from leaning into Derek’s space to kiss the smug smile off his face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, it's been a wild ride everyone. And I actually got it finished and posted before season 4!  
> This is actually the longest thing I've ever written, I went back and checked and it's even longer than my first ever hp fic, and that monster took a year!  
> Thanks for all the lovely comments/kudos, I'm sure I'll be back very soon with s4 based fics- I finish exams finally on Tuesday, so I'll have even more time to write hopefully!  
> Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed reading it as much as i did writing it (and while I'm here, so many thanks to Becky, who is basically the only reason I didn't give up on this fic after the first thousand words!)  
> [Come cry with me over season four on tumblr, because it's going to break our hearts](http://charimiel.tumblr.com)


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